Summary: Contemporary philosophical thought does on the whole both goes beyond and overcomes that bold vision of reason that was typical of a certain form of the Enlightenment; nihilism, relativism, “pensiero debole” between them amount to a acknowledging contingency in the world and in the use of reason to try to understand it. Rather than weakening Christian thought, by clearing away absolutes that were not really such, contemporary philosophy becomes invocation of the Absolute: a lesson dear to the Franciscan way of thinking, particularly that of Bonavnture.