The positions and arguments
of major philosophers are understood within a
framework of assumptions, often tacit, about the larger shape of
philosophy’s past. These assumptions concern the motivating problems, aims, and also the
achievements of past philosophers or
‘schools’ of philosophers. Evaluation of achievements may be
expected to vary as the present philosophical climate varies. None the less, historians of philosophy,
in pursuing contextual methodology, should seek as
much as possible to work upward from
past philosophers’ own statements in establishing the aims or philosophical motives of individuals or
schools. They might also seek, in
the first instance, to gauge their evaluations by contextually appropriate standards.
Often, philosophical history
has been given shape by dividing philosophers
into competing schools, characterized as responding to one
or more central problems. Kant divided the philosophers before
himself into ‘intellectualists’ (like Plato) and ‘sensualists’ (like Epicurus) with regard to the
primary object of knowledge, and,
with respect to the origin of knowledge, into ‘empiricists’ (Aristotle and Locke) and ‘noologists’
(those who follow nous, or the
intellect: Plato and Leibniz). These dichotomies were to be overcome by, or synthesized in, his own
critical philosophy. Others in Kant’s time added a
‘sceptical’ school. In late-nineteenthcentury histories,
the period from Descartes to Kant was variously categorized,
in terms of nationality; metaphysical versus critical approaches
(with Locke, Berkeley, and Hume among the latter); systematic,
empirical, and critical approaches; and rationalist, empiricist,
sceptical, and critical ones.
In more recent historical
narratives, the theme of scepticism has been
used to characterize the development of early modern philosophy within a framework of rationalism,
empiricism, and critical philosophy.
In this shaping of history, Descartes raised a sceptical challenge
that he was unable to answer adequately; Locke, Berkeley, and Hume
pursued it further, in successive steps; and Kant sought to
answer Hume’s sceptical challenge with his first Critique. As an organizing theme for early modern
philosophy, scepticism has obvious
limits, since Spinoza, Leibniz, and Locke paid scant attention
to it, Descartes used scepticism as a tool but was not seriously
threatened by it, and Kant had little interest in discussing scepticism about the external world
until he was accused of it in early
reviews of his first Critique.
Further, Berkeley’s classification as an
empiricist, proto-Humean sceptic can be challenged, notwithstanding
his use of certain Lockean principles and Hume’s subsequent
use of Berkeleyan arguments. Berkeley affirmed a ‘notion’
of spirit as an active substance, upon which he sought to
establish an immaterialist metaphysics—not a particularly ‘empiricist’
project.
Given the renewed interest in
history of philosophy, there has in fact
been surprisingly little explicit discussion of periodization, classification, and narrative themes. If
the sceptical master narrative for
early modern philosophy is abandoned (as it should be, while acknowledging various sceptical
traditions), new themes and shapes
will need to be developed. These should take into account the
early modern penchant for investigating the power and scope of human understanding (which doesn’t
require sceptical motivation), the
relations between philosophy and the sciences, and developments in value theory.
The shape of philosophy’s
history from the late nineteenth to the end of
the twentieth century has yet to be formed. In anglophone scholarship,
efforts toward creating this history include work in the history
of ‘analytic’ philosophy and the history of the philosophy of science. The task is large, and the
surface has barely been scratched. In the
history of analytic philosophy, beyond the emphasis on logic
and language as pursued by Michael Dummett and others,
further themes need investigating. These should
address the widespread philosophical interest, in
the first half of the twentieth century, in sense
perception, knowledge, and mind. Perhaps as a result of the ensconcement of behaviourist attitudes
within later analytic philosophy, little
attention has been paid to early-twentieth-century theories
of mind and the mind–body relation. One context for these topics
is the writings of the neo-Kantians on the distinction between the Naturwissenschaften and Geisteswissenschaften. Thus
far, work on the history of the philosophy of
science in the twentieth century
has focused mainly on the Vienna Circle and its surroundings. The topic might be widened to include
American approaches initiated before 1930 and
carried on afterward, French work in history
and philosophy of science, and the ongoing relation between science and metaphysics. Sufficient
critical distance from the reflexive
charge of ‘psychologism’ may have been attained by now to
permit the extensive turn-of-the-century relations between philosophy and psychology to be studied on their
own terms, and in a way that recognizes the many
influences of the new psychology on philosophy
at this time.
As philosophers, historians
of philosophy should be prepared to examine
their enterprise philosophically. Discussions in the earlier historiographical literature on the
methodology of interpreting particular
texts have continued in recent work. However, larger questions
about periodization and narrative themes, also raised in
the earlier literature, have not been vigorously pursued.
The recent bounty of work in the history of
philosophy should provide the materials
needed to support explicit reflection on the shapes of philosophical
history.
As philosophers, historians of philosophy should also be prepared to relate the positions of the past
(contextually understood) to the
positions of the present, and to offer to present-day philosophy insights gleaned from history on both
the structures of and solutions to philosophical
problems.
Source : Sorell, Tom and
G. A. J. Rogers.(2005), Analytic Philosophy
and History of Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon
Press).
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