They believed they could begin with themselves and without having to depart from the logic of antithesis. They thought that on their own, rationalistically, finite people could find a unity within the total diversity — an adequate explanation for the whole of reality. This is where philosophy stood prior to our own era. In the end the philosophers came to the realization that they could not find this unified rationalistic circle and so, departing from the classical methodology of antithesis, they shifted the concept of truth, and modern man was born.