The History of Philosophy as Philosophy: (1). Philosophical Uses Of Past Philosophical Texts

More than any other discipline, philosophy uses the main texts of past philosophy as an introduction, at both the bachelor’s and doctoral levels. It would be odd for someone to achieve a Ph.D. in philosophy without having studied in some depth one or more of the great philosophers of the past, such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, or Kant. Moreover, the texts and (presumed) positions of past philosophers are often used to locate or frame present contributions to philosophy, and perhaps even to supply candidate solutions to today’s philosophical problems.

Philosophers make many uses of past texts, and so they should. Leaving aside non-essential uses, such as using a thick text for a doorstop or using editions in various colours as shelf decoration, properly philosophical uses can vary widely. A philosopher might simply skip and skim through some great work, using it as a sort of muse, without seeing herself as interpreting the text or assessing its arguments; her sole interest would be to prompt some ideas of The History of Philosophy as Philosophy 89 her own. A different use would be to read through a past text without paying close attention to its historical context or its author’s aims, in order to find potential answers to present philosophical problems and to assess them for their strength or weakness. In this approach, it is common to ‘fix up’ past positions by ignoring parts thought to be weak, such as the ‘psychological’ portions of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (in Strawson’s reading), or to downplay some aspects, such as Berkeley’s concern with spirit as an active substance (in Pappas’s work on Berkeley’s Thought). Such approaches may pay close attention to the entire text, and attempt to give it a coherent reading using concepts and terminology from the interpreter’s own time, as in Price’s ‘fixing up’ of Hume as a sense-data philosopher. Because neither the museful nor the fixer-upper use finds it necessary or desirable to attend to historical context, I classify them as non-contextual and non-historical uses (excluding them from the ‘history of philosophy’ proper).

Other philosophical users of past texts consider it essential to attend to historical context. These readers believe that the philosophical benefit of studying such texts is likely to increase through such attention.

Those who hold this view need not agree on the ultimate aim of reading historically, or on the extent of the relevant historical context. Some may simply realize that, because language changes over time and because philosophers in different periods have different background knowledge or beliefs, even to read the words on the page with comprehension necessitates some degree of immersion in the literature surrounding a given text. Thus, to understand Descartes’s use of the term ‘a priori’, it helps to be acquainted with a standard Aristotelian usage, meaning ‘reasoning from cause to effect’, by contrast with ‘a posteriori’ reasoning from effect to cause. Similarly, Kant’s use of the term ‘physiology’ in its root sense (stemming from Greek physis, or nature) to mean ‘science or doctrine concerning nature in general’ would be badly misread if taken as referring to bodily physiology, or, in his phrase about Locke’s ‘physiology of the human understanding’, to brain physiology. One might, of course, be well aware of the need for historical context to gain better access to past texts while still wanting to use those texts primarily as a source of raw material for solutions or answers to present philosophical problems. This would be historically sensitive reading in the service of fixer-upper ends.

Beyond this sort of aim, there are historically sensitive practices of reading that are also historically oriented in their philosophical methodology. By ‘historically oriented philosophical methodology’ I mean taking past texts seriously on their own terms, seeking to understand the problems and projects of past philosophy as they were, instead of only seeking a reading that solves a current philosophical problem. Such approaches need not be uncritical or nonevaluative, but their evaluations and criticisms will, in the first instance, be rendered according to standards implicit or explicit at the time the work was written. Discerning and employing such standards is itself no small task, requiring considerable philosophical work. Moreover, such approaches need not be without contemporary philosophical pay-off. But such pay-off occurs precisely because one has achieved an acquaintance with past, philosophy on its own terms (as far as is possible).

Some historically oriented methodologies do repudiate criticism. Their aim is simply to understand. This attitude is often accompanied by a historicist outlook—the belief that the philosophy of each age is (or should be seen as) simply an expression of the culture of the time, having no significance except as evidence about past thought. Such an outlook is more common among intellectual historians than historians of philosophy. Even so, such an attitude does not rule out all philosophical uses for history of philosophy, for even if past problems showed no real continuity with those of the present, we might still trace the previous evolution of our problems in order to isolate aspects that are vestiges of the past.

Although I wouldn’t want to rule out a radically historicist historiography of philosophy by fiat, I doubt the plausibility of the view that no philosophical topics or problems persist across long stretches of time, and I doubt that all past standards of evaluation are totally foreign to current standards. I would instead make the relation of past and present problems and standards into an object of investigation in its own right. A narrowly historicist approach would preclude that. So I will leave aside the historicist approach, and consider historically oriented approaches that aim for a present-day pay-off to be gained from historical understanding.

Several sorts of pay-off may be envisioned. One is simply to gain a genuine understanding of the landmark positions that frame contemporary discussions. Here, the idea is that, in making use of past philosophy, discovering Kant’s actual position (e.g.) on the nature of analytic judgements will be of more use than simply translating his position into a recent idiom. Accordingly, one would see Kantian analyticity as applying to concepts and judgements (taken as cognitive acts) and would be wary of interpretations in terms of sentences or word meanings. We can thereby come to appreciate both the similarities and the differences between Kant’s and more recent notions of analyticity. Seeing the differences enables us to ask what changed and why. We gain not only a more accurate fix on a landmark but also the potential of greater selfunderstanding through history.

Better understanding of the structure and development of past philosophy can yield further benefits. A thorough investigation of individual texts or philosophers may reveal assumptions that are deeply embedded, unargued, and even unavowed. Examination of the historical progression of such assumptions may allow us to gain new perspective on current assumptions, or to question general platitudes. Here, the unit of analysis extends beyond the individual text or philosopher to the historical development of philosophical traditions. One use of such an examination would be to diagnose current philosophical ills, as Richard Rorty aimed to do in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. More generally, examination of the shape of the history of philosophy, relating project to project, trend to trend, tradition to tradition, involves a search for philosophical structure in that history. Finding such structure would certainly add to our knowledge of what philosophy is and can be.

This taxonomy of uses of historically oriented methods is not exhaustive, but it captures some main instances of recent practice, as examples will illustrate.

Source : Sorell, Tom and G. A. J. Rogers.(2005), Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

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The History of Philosophy as Philosophy

Philosophers have been talking about their predecessors since before Plato and Aristotle. The history of philosophy as a subdiscipline of philosophy has been recognized since the eighteenth century, when subdivisions beyond the traditional logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy became generally established. Philosophers have addressed the shape of philosophy’s history as a philosophical topic since Kant and Hegel. At the same time, philosophers as diverse as Descartes, Kant, and Russell have made disparaging remarks about the philosophical benefit of studying the history of philosophy, especially, as Russell put it, if done in a manner ‘truly historical’. Here, I take ‘truly historical’ to mean history of philosophy that, in framing its interpretations of past arguments and doctrines, pays considerable attention to the intellectual and cultural context in which past philosophy was produced.

In recent decades, a renewed interest in the history of philosophy has been noted, which implies that interest had previously been in decline. As early as 1970, Michael Ayers could suggest that ‘more philosophers are now taking the history of philosophy seriously than has been the case for some time’. Since then, further claims of renewal have been made, along with more disparagement. In the past twenty years, appointments in the history of philosophy in major graduate departments have risen (in anglophone universities), especially in early modern philosophy. Ancient philosophy had representatives of historical and philological approaches throughout the twentieth century (in most major universities), as did medieval philosophy (in smaller numbers). The primary change in recent attitudes has concerned early modern philosophy (through Kant). I therefore focus initially on that period and, within it, on ‘theoretical’ as opposed to moral and political philosophy—on ‘metaphysics and epistemology’ broadly construed, as we now say.

Although Ayers’s remark accurately captures a feeling that the history of philosophy had been in decline during the 1960s, it is important to recall that contextually oriented history of philosophy was being done throughout the twentieth century. Restricting the discussion to the English-speaking world (it should be generally recognized that the history of philosophy was alive and well in France, Germany, and Italy), instances of such history include E. A. Burtt’s 1925 book on early modern science and metaphysics; A. B. Gibson’s 1932 and S. V. Keeling’s 1934 books on Descartes; N. K. Smith’s studies, editions, and translations of Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant, published between 1902 and 1953; A. O. Lovejoy’s 1936 book on the great chain of being (among other works); John Passmore’s 1951 book on Hume; John Yolton’s 1956 book on Locke; and Richard Popkin’s 1960 book on scepticism. These authors were trained at and held positions at a variety of universities throughout the English-speaking academic world, in Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, the United States, and New Zealand. In the United States, Columbia and Johns Hopkins were prominent centres for research in the history of philosophy, but in fact such research was widespread in doctoral programmes.

The quality of work of the authors listed, and the continuing influence of many of them, leave no doubt that significant Englishlanguage work in history of philosophy was being produced from the turn of the century into the 1950s and beyond. At the same time, Ayers is not alone, or incorrect, in thinking that by 1970 the atmosphere for history was negative, not only in England but also in America. However, this perception needs to be qualified in several ways. First, the negative attitude was not new, especially in England; in addition to Russell, C. D. Broad and H. H. Price suggested that although the great philosophers of the past should certainly be read and studied, little or nothing of philosophical significance was to be gained by adopting historical or contextual methods. Second, it seems likely that any decline in the quality and relative quantity of work in the history of philosophy during the 1960s, especially among new Ph.D.s, was due in part to a decline in the teaching (or learning) of important scholarly skills, including the ability to read Latin, French, and German. Third, there were national differences. The anti-historical attitudes of Russell, Broad, Price, and others had more immediate influence in England (despite the ongoing work of G. H. R. Parkinson, W. von Leyden, and others), while the oft-noted ‘analytic’ antipathy to history in the United States arose somewhat later (peaking in the 1960s and early 1970s). These points do not negate the fact of anti-historical sentiment, but they do restrict its spatio-temporal scope.

The fourth and perhaps most important qualification is that, despite the feeling in 1970 that history had previously been looked down upon, the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s saw a blossoming of work in the historiography of philosophy—or the philosophy of the history of philosophy—especially in the United States. This work was in part fostered by Lovejoy and his colleagues (such as George Boas and Philip Wiener) in the history of ideas movement (a movement that spawned much work in the history of philosophy, as well as influencing intellectual history generally). More widely, the historiography of philosophy was pursued by Maurice Mandelbaum at Johns Hopkins, Paul Oscar Kristeller and John Hermann Randall at Columbia, Lewis White Beck at Rochester, Harold R. Smart at Cornell, Haskell Fain at Wisconsin, and James Collins at St Louis University.9 To this flourishing in the United States may be added Passmore in Australia, von Leyden at Durham, and W. H. Walsh at Edinburgh. These authors took a philosophical attitude to the question of the necessity for and philosophical relevance of historically and contextually oriented history of philosophy. The more recent works in this vein, such as the 1978 book by Jonathan Re´e, Ayers, and Adam Westoby, articles by Yolton (1975a, 1975b, 1985, 1986) and Richard Watson (1980), or the 1992 book by Jorge J. E. Gracia, and the collections edited by Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner (1984), A. J. Holland (1985), Peter Hare (1988), and T. Z. Lavine and V. Tejera (1989), continue (and sometimes refer to) a well-established literature.

Against this backdrop, there is little basis for today’s contextually oriented historians to consider themselves lonely revolutionaries. Nor should they bemoan a lack of appreciation from ahistorical colleagues. As in the past, the only remedy for lack of appreciation is to do good work and make its significance accessible to nonspecialists, including not only other philosophers but also the wider audience of humanists, scientists, and readers more generally (there are of course no guarantees). Here I want to consider ways in which the study of past philosophy has been used and is used in philosophy, and to make a case for the philosophical value and necessity of a contextually oriented approach. I shall consider some uses of past texts and of history that reveal limits to non-contextual history, including Strawson’s Kant, Rorty’s grand diagnosis of the Western tradition, and Friedman on Kant’s philosophy of mathematics. I shall then consider ways in which the history of philosophy may become philosophically deeper by becoming more historical, and instances in which history of philosophy of various stripes has or may deliver a philosophical pay-off. Along the way, I shall urge historians of philosophy to attend not only to individual philosophers and their problems and projects, but also to the larger shape of the history of philosophy and its narrative themes.

Source : Sorell, Tom and G. A. J. Rogers.(2005), Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

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Lima Pantangan dalam Menghadapi Kehidupan

Dalam menghadapi kehidupan ini ada lima pantangan yang sebaiknya tidak
kita lakukan, yaitu:

1.     Pantang bertindak sia-sia.

Setiap tindakan kita sebaiknya terhindar dari kesia-siaan. Setiap tutur
kata, setiap langkah dan setiap apapun hendaknya dilakukan untuk sesuatu yang bermanfaat, baik di dunia maupun akhirat.

Jika kita bisa menghindari kesia-siaan, insya Allah kita akan menjadi 'pribadi yang sukses'.

2.     Pantang mengeluh.

Keluh kesah tidak menyelesaikan masalah. Seandainya dengan mengeluh
masalah bisa selesai, maka semua orang akan menyelesaikan masalahnya
dengan mengeluh. Tetapi mustahil itu terjadi.

Jika kita tidak mengeluh dalam menghadapi segala persoalan, maka insya
Allah kita akan menjadi 'pribadi yang tangguh.'

3.     Pantang menjadi beban.

Bersikap mulia dengan tidak menjadi beban bagi orang lain adalah sikap
yang sangat terpuji. Walaupun tidak mungkin bagi kita untuk sama sekali
tidak bergantung, tetapi paling tidak kita mengurangi sekecil-kecilnya
ketergantungan itu. Setiap bantuan orang lain sekecil apapun, sebaiknya
segera kita bayar dengan apapun semampu kita.

Jika kita tidak menjadi beban orang lain maka insya Allah kita akan
mempunyai 'harga diri' yang tinggi.

4.     Pantang berkhianat.

Berkhianat adalah sikap yang sangat tercela. Sesulit apapun keadaan kita,
jangan pernah berkhianat.

Jika kita tidak pernah berkhianat maka kita akan menjadi pribadi yang
'terpercaya'. Nah, kepercayaan inilah modal yang sangat berharga dalam mengarungi hidup.

5.     Pantang mengotori hati.

Hati adalah komponen yang sangat penting dalam tubuh. Jika hati baik, maka
menjadi baiklah seluruh tubuhnya. Sebaliknya jika hati buruk, maka
buruklah sekujur tubuhnya.

Jika kita bisa menjaga hati tetap bersih maka insya Allah kita akan
menjadi 'bahagia' dan amal ibadah kita diterima.

Sumber : aA Gym

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