What is the History of Philosophy and Why is it Important?

The advent of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Journal of the History of Philosophy set me to thinking again about these old disputed questions. It seems obvious that what is unique to the history of philosophy is that it is history. It is specifically history of philosophical positions, principles, and arguments with no restrictions concerning who held them where or when, or what they are. The history of philosophy as history, then, is a discipline in which the philosophical positions, principles, and arguments of philosophers are presented, analyzed, and explained in the historical contexts of their times.

One way to proceed is to ask and answer questions such as the following: Given our best understanding of the intellectual milieu and vernacular of the times, what did the philosopher say? Given ditto, what did the philosopher mean to say? Did he say what he meant to say? Did he support his position adequately or inadequately? What might or could the philosopher have said in the context of his times, either to improve or alter his position, or to avoid errors? How did the philosopher's contemporaries respond? Who had the better arguments? What developed philosophically out of all this? More questions in this vein can be asked. The history of philosophy is compiled of answers to such questions.

The history of philosophy is also philosophy to the extent that it contributes to ongoing philosophical inquiry. It can do this when historians present their results in terms today's philosophers can understand. Then one can ask whether or not a given historical philosophical position holds up against or contributes to today's philosophical views on the same or similar issues.

In sum, the history of philosophy both as history and as philosophy is the presentation, analysis, and explanation of philosophy in historical context in terms today's philosophers can understand.

The contemporary discipline that the Sellars generation called structural history of philosophy and that the Bennett generation calls analytic history of philosophy is not history as defined above. Analytic history of philosophy does not have unrestricted subject matter. Analytic historians consider only those philosophical positions, principles, and arguments that they believe can contribute to today's philosophical inquiries. Moreover, analytic historians are not restricted to examining historical positions in the vernacular and context of historical times. Historical positions can be analyzed solely by using today's most advanced terminology and techniques. Thus analytic historians' work on historical positions need not be comprehensible to the philosophers who held them. The point of analytic history of philosophy is not to illuminate historical positions, principles, and arguments in the context of their times, but rather to derive from them insights that will help advance the solution of today's problems in philosophy.

Years ago a pioneer of analytic history of philosophy, O. K. Bouwsma, used to say, "Just give me a sentence to analyze. All I need is a sentence." Bouwsma's "Descartes' Evil Genius" was essential reading in the 1950s. But Bouwsma was interested in philosophy per se, not in history or what historical figures really meant or could have understood.

When I wrote an analytic history M.A. thesis in the 1950s with Robert G. Turnbull, he suggested as an exercise working out the position of "Leibnoza," or "Spinobbes," or (a long shot), "Deskant." This exercise derived from the approach to philosophy of the director of Turnbull's Ph.D. dissertation, Wilfrid Sellars. Another of my professors, Gustav Bergmann, set Malebranche right structurally in "Some Remarks on the Philosophy of Malebranche." But the best and probably most lastingly influential of the classic works in analytic or structural history of philosophy is Jaakko Hintikka's "Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?".

The dean of contemporary analytic history of philosophy is Jonathan Bennett, and I can make my point simply by quoting a few sentences from the first...