Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- I Truth and Some Philosophers
- II Moral Progress: Toward More Inclusive Communities
- III The Role of Philosophy in Human Progress
- 13 The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres
- 14 The Contingency of Philosophical Problems: Michael Ayers on Locke
- 15 Dewey Between Hegel and Darwin
- 16 Habermas, Derrida, and the Functions of Philosophy
- 17 Derrida and the Philosophical Tradition
- Index
13 - The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- I Truth and Some Philosophers
- II Moral Progress: Toward More Inclusive Communities
- III The Role of Philosophy in Human Progress
- 13 The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres
- 14 The Contingency of Philosophical Problems: Michael Ayers on Locke
- 15 Dewey Between Hegel and Darwin
- 16 Habermas, Derrida, and the Functions of Philosophy
- 17 Derrida and the Philosophical Tradition
- Index
Summary
Rational and Historical Reconstructions
Analytic philosophers who have attempted “rational reconstructions” of the arguments of great dead philosophers have done so in the hope of treating these philosophers as contemporaries, as colleagues with whom they can exchange views. They have argued that unless one does this one might as well turn over the history of philosophy to historians – whom they picture as mere doxographers, rather than seekers after philosophical trudi. Such reconstructions, however, have led to charges of anachronism. Analytic historians of philosophy are frequendy accused of beating texts into die shape of propositions currendy being debated in the philosophical journals. It is urged that we should not force Aristode or Kant to take sides in current debates within philosophy of language or metaediics. There seems to be a dilemma: either we anachronistically impose enough of our problems and vocabulary on the dead to make diem conversational partners, or we confine our interpretive activity to making their falsehoods look less silly by placing diem in die context of die benighted times in which diey were written.
Those alternatives, however, do not constitute a dilemma. We should do both of these things, but do them separately. We should treat die history of philosophy as we treat the history of science. In the latter field, we have no reluctance in saying that we know better than our ancestors what they were talking about. We do not think it anachronistic to say diat Aristode had a false model of the heavens or that Galen did not understand how the circulatory system worked. We take the pardonable ignorance of great dead scientists for granted.
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- Truth and ProgressPhilosophical Papers, pp. 247 - 273Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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