Ancient Philosophy

Modern Intellectual History, 2007

Although history is the pre-eminent part of the gallant sciences, philosophers advise against it from fear that it might completely destroy the kingdom of darkness—that is, scholastic philosophy—which previously has been wrongly held to be a necessary instrument of theology.

British Journal for the History of Philosophy (BJHP), forthcoming. This is a DRAFT. The DOI of the published paper will be: 10.1080/09608788.2018.1458281. Once the article has published online, it will be available at the following permanent link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2018.1458281 Methodologies and theories for writing histories of philosophy are particularly relevant today due to the abounding challenges to the discipline that have emerged: e.g., the problem concerning the precise mode of the inclusion of non-Western philosophies in the history of philosophy, the response to postcolonial considerations at large, the transformative impact of new media, and the question whether the history of philosophy is primarily a philosophical, rather than merely historical, enterprise. À propos the relative scarcity that is to be witnessed in explicit articulations of methodologies and theories for writing histories of philosophy, in this note I focus on certain spontaneous, rather than theoretically planned, responses that have emerged to the above challenges — in particular Peter Adamson's History of Philosophy without any gaps — and in conclusion, as an example of methodological development, I touch on some of the problems we encounter in the case of the inclusion of Byzantine philosophy in the history of philosophy.

“What’s wrong with philosophical history of philosophy?” in: British Journal for the History of Philosophy 31.5 (2023), 1056-1065., 2023

Metaphilosophy, 2008

This article's goal is to outline one approach to providing a principled answer to the question of what is the proper relationship between philosophy and the study of philosophy's history, a question arising, for example, in the design of a curriculum for graduate students. This approach requires empirical investigation of philosophizing past and present, and thus takes philosophy as an object of study in something like the way that contemporary (naturalistic) philosophy of science takes science as an object of study. This approach also requires articulating a sense in which philosophy might make, or might have made, progress.

Medium -- The Apeiron Blog, 2020

If history class bored you to tears, then the prospect of studying the history of Philosophy could seem utterly sleep-inducing. If it’s tough to relate to John C. Calhoun (1782–1850 A.D.), imagine trying to sympathetically appreciate the life, times, and notions of Aristotle (384–322 B.C.). Moreover, the ideas of past philosophers might strike us as absolutely offensive, at least by our contemporary moral standards. (By the way, both Calhoun and Aristotle defended the institution of slavery.) If you can transcend the boredom and wokeness, where might you start an intensive study of philosophical history? At the beginning: the dawn of Philosophy in Ancient Greece. Before undertaking the project, though, it might be questioned why such an inquiry is worthwhile in the first place.

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 1999

Assume for the sake of argument that doing philosophy is intrinsically valuable, where ‘doing philosophy’ refers to the practice of forging arguments for and against the truth of theses in the domains of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc. The practice of the history of philosophy is devoted instead to discovering arguments for and against the truth of ‘authorial’ propositions, i.e. propositions that state the belief of some historical figure about a philosophical proposition. I explore arguments to think that doing history of philosophy is valuable, specifically, valuable in such a way that its value does not reduce to the value of doing philosophy. Most such arguments proffered by historians of philosophy fail egregiously, as I show. I then offer a proposal about what makes doing history of philosophy uniquely valuable, but it is one that many historians will not find agreeable.

Lychnos. Swedish Yearbook for the History of Ideas, 2006

The main aim of this thesis is to offer a solution to questions concerning the historical nature of the inquiry into the past of philosophy. In order to provide answers, two consecutive steps are proposed: First part of the thesis is focused on contemporary philosophical discussions concerning the nature of history as a discipline and covers the issues raised by narrativists and epistemological philosophers of history in the last sixty years. It also deals with the concepts of historical realism and anti-realism. Eventually, a moderate version of historical anti-realism combined with constructivism is offered as an inclusive and fruitful account of what history is about. In the second part of the thesis, the concept of historical inquiry from the previous chapters is applied to the general issues which are often discussed in relation to the methodology of history of philosophy: historicity of philosophy, context, contextual reading, canon formation, anachronisms, etc. It is shown that the account of history, usually presupposed in philosophical discussions about the history of philosophy, is often based on the naive form of historical realism, although its disadvantages can be easily avoided. History of philosophy thus have both: philosophical and historical aspects. Historical approach to history of philosophy does not lead to a mere chronicle of past opinions, but it can provide a valuable historical and philosophical image of the world.