Thinking about Thinking: What Kind of Conversation is Philosophy?

2. On the Unity of Thematic Philosophy and the History of Thought

22 t w o On the Unity of Thematic Philosophy and the History of Thought Some decades ago, the very complete bibliographic Repertorium of the Revue Philosophique de Louvain listed more than two-thirds of all recent publications in philosophy as dedicated to historical subjects and less than one-third to thematic ones. The proportions might have changed, but the production of studies in the history of philosophy is still abundant, especially in “continental” philosophy. There are, however, many among the faculty who think that the history of thought has little to do with the task of an authentic philosopher. They restrict the past of philosophy to a mere preparation that—like the past of physics or biology—is overcome by today’s thematic philosophy. According to them, the study of the past is not necessary for solving our philosophical problems, and the best introduction consists in a presentation of the ongoing debates about actual topics. The defenders of this position will have to indicate a borderline between the history of philosophy and the actuality of contemporary philosophy, but they rarely thematize this difficult question as such. The philosophical present they recommend does not consist in a timeless here and now but rather in a recent—and thus already bygone— On the Unity of Thematic Philosophy 23 constellation of philosophical problems, currents, and developments, i.e., in a recent past of philosophy. But how can we draw a clear-cut and philosophically justified distinction between our recent past and the extended past of history? Not only does this distinction seem to be a rather vague one, but a more fundamental question about separating philosophy’s actuality from its history asks why a more recent past of philosophy would or should be more relevant for our philosophizing than a more remote philosophical past, which includes many more classics than the recent history of philosophy. Some might respond to these questions by asking rhetorically: Hasn’t the great progress in science and technology, during the last centuries, given convincing proof of progress? Doesn’t this exemplary progress give us enough reasons and means to distinguish our present epoch from earlier ages of experience and thought? Such a response assumes that the modern faith in progress on all fronts of theory, including philosophy, is justified. Against that faith, I will defend here that progress in philosophy cannot be compared to the progress of natural sciences and that a similar faith in philosophical progress, as if it had obtained triumph after triumph during the last centuries, has already been refuted by the many contrasts and hostilities that today divide a great number of singular philosophers and philosophical schools. But let us begin with the question of whether human individuals are able to philosophize without being supported by the experiences that their predecessors have had with it. If total independence from the past is not possible in philosophy, must we then conclude that even the most original and creative philosopher is conditioned by written or spoken products that are already there, for example, in the form of a tradition or school in which one has been initiated? Similar questions can be asked about art, religion , morals, language, and all other dimensions of human culture. The answer seems to be in all cases that we never originate anything completely new but always take over, repeat, and—at least to some extent—transform the linguistic, moral, religious, artistic, philosophical patterns and traditions that have been produced before we arrived on the scene. All the discontinuities of human history cannot undo 24 On the Unity of Thematic Philosophy the fact that no human performance is entirely original. A human product is always, at least partially, the reproduction or supersession of something old: the renewal of a past that is accepted in a particular or individual—and to this extent also new and original—way. Human speech, prayer, art, and philosophy are re-creations of exemplary speeches, prayers, works of art, and philosophies that have come to us from a stretch of history that has already passed, whether that history is near or far from us in time. The most original (re)creations renew certain classics or traditions by a less predictable or expected sort of continuation; they transform a part of history whose first sources have disappeared into an unknown or mythical prehistory. Human creativity is—especially in hindsight—an only partly predictable...