Models of the History of Philosophy. Volume II: From the Cartesian Age to Brucker (review)

This magisterial volume translates a collectively authored and edited work that was published in Italian in 1979. The English edition includes appropriate bibliographical updates, and very little about its content distinguishes it from a new publication. As a reference work on “general histories of philosophy,” it fills a large lacuna in Anglophone libraries. It is more than a reference work, however, since it carefully traces important developments in historiographical practices and theories through a key period (1650–1750) in modern philosophy. It will be a valuable resource to scholars of the period, and to anyone interested in the theories and methods of the history of philosophy.

The text consists mainly of analytical reviews of primary sources, and its most obvious use will be as a reference for this literature. Most of the subchapters divide by author and work, although in important cases (e.g. Pierre Bayle) thematic divisions also intervene. French and Italian histories are treated in part 1, with part 2 devoted to German histories. The content of each section strikes a balance between a summary of the relevant historical outline and an analysis of the method by which the history was written. The authors and editors of this volume are especially sensitive to the relationship of the history of philosophy to both wider philosophical developments and general trends in historiography. Helpful introductions to each chapter highlight the central concepts and methodological themes, and the bibliographies of secondary literature are extremely thorough.

The volume provides a loose history of historiographical practices, charting and describing the rise of central concepts such as ‘modern’ and ‘ancient.’ This distinction is central to the early chapters, since many of the works studied in the volume propose detailed arguments about the conformité between the two epochs. A related distinction between Christian and pagan philosophies is likewise prominent. These distinctions, together with some variance in starting and ending points, are enough to map a menu of narrative strategies; for example those for whom philosophy begins with Adam, and who take pagan (Greek) philosophy to be incompatible with Christianity, will compose a general history dominated by themes of providence and strife. Such narrative strategies highlight the argumentative, rhetorical, and theoretical purposes that guided the historiography of philosophy.

As a history of historiographical theories, the volume seeks to explain the appearance of a methodologically self-conscious historiography in the middle of the eighteenth century. Jakob Brucker is the undisputed hero of the story, and the analysis of earlier texts keeps this end explicitly in view. The authors stress the birth of history as an epistemological problem, highlighting the positive impact of Cartesian antihistoricism. Descartes’s position forced a distinction between historical erudition and the epistemology of history, which led to a precise definition of historical knowledge in the Port-Royal Logic (5). Two opening chapters on French historiography recount these developments through and beyond Bayle’s Dictionnaire. Emphasis is on the “emergence of evaluation” (93), which put an end to doxography and biography and so made the history of philosophy an exercise of philosophical legitimacy.

Part 2 underlines how German eclectic historiography introduced further methodological advances. Earlier histories either emphasized points of agreement among the sects (syncretism), or employed the diversity of philosophies as evidence against each (skepticism). In the eclectic view, the syncretists were prone to simplification and distortion in their quest for agreement, whereas the skeptics lacked a positive philosophical purpose. A more careful distinction between evaluation and exegesis, however, enabled eclectic historians to appreciate the uniqueness and diversity of philosophies. Assessment focused upon historical significance, and philosophers searched history for valuable lessons rather than confirmation of their opinions (304). The lessons include an injunction to become more independent, warned as we are by so much sectarianism in history (353); and the inevitably humbling effect of wide learning, which discourages individual thinkers from “attribut[ing] excessive...