Repository | Book | Chapter

I. The history of philosophy differs from other kinds of history mainly in its attempts to understand historical change exclusively through the examination and evaluation of philosophical arguments. Of course, nobody writing the history of philosophy is likely to deny that philosophical arguments are given by people and that the context and aspirations of the philosopher will shape her arguments. Despite this concession it remains common practice to ignore such contributions in the reconstruction of a historical figure's philosophical views. Reflecting an extreme version of this approach, Scott Soames has recently written in response to criticism of his Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, if progress [in philosophy] is to be made, there must at some point emerge a clear demarcation between genuine accomplishments that need to be assimilated by later practitioners, and other work that can be forgotten, disregarded, or left to those whose interest is not in the subject itself, but in history for its own sake. The aim of my volumes was to contribute to making that demarcation (Soames 2006, 655).

DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-3540-0_10

Full citation: