If there was a time, however, when life had its own unity, before
        the need for philosophy arose, then there might in principle be a time
        in which that unity was reconstituted as it were from within society 
        itself. This raises the the distinctly un-Kantian possibility which 
        fascinated several later philosophers in the Hegelian tradition, among
        them Marx, namely the idea that in a satisfactory society, from which
        certain kinds of deep-seated conflicts were absent, philosophy (along
        with religion) would be superfluous and would disappear. Of course,
        even in such a basically harmonious society there might be a pale
        successor-discipline to the antique magnificence of "philosophy,"
        which might, for example, take the form of straightforward attempts
        to get an overview of the state of our knowledge or even suggestions
        for minor improvements in our social arrangements. People in such
        a society might have a use for a kind of encyclopedic summary of
        their knowledge, but they would not need anything like a traditional
        world view. They could be happy nominalists, living their lives without
        dark shadows, "metaphysics," and deep, hidden meanings. One line
        of criticism of what are sometimes called "positivist" strands in
        twentieth-century philosophy consists in claiming that positivists in
        fact propound methods of direct observation and theory construction
        which would in principle be cognitively perfectly appropriate in
        a fundamentally harmonious society; however, by advocating the 
        exclusive use of such methods in repressive and conflict-ridden
        societies like ours, they tacitly contribute to diverting attention
        from fundamental social antagonisms.
        
            Raymond Geuss, "The Metaphysical Need and the Utopian Impulse"