Trending practices and discussions in contemporary English-language historiography of philosophy

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31649/sent41.03.43

Keywords:

history of philosophy, historiography of philosophy, analytic philosophy, English-language philosophy, inclusiveness, internalism, externalism

Abstract

This article outlines the leading trends in contemporary English-language historiography of philosophy. It is shown that the anti-historicity, which was characteristic of analytic philosophy in its classical versions was only a moment in its development. A historical turn that began in English-language philosophical world as early as the 1960s, during the first decades of the 21st century has led to a true flourishing of the history of philosophy - both at the conceptual and institutional level. Contemporary English-speaking historians of philosophy pay considerable attention to the methodologically important distinction between real historical process, i.e., facts that took place in the past (history of philosophy), and reflections concerning means, goals, and epistemological foundations for the understanding of these facts (historiography of philosophy). It is also shown that one of the main results of a careful study of history of philosophy is inclusiveness – drawing attention to those pages or aspects of the past that, for some reason, were marginalized or completely forgotten. Factors that were traditionally dismissed as external and unimportant, now acquire the same significance as those that were previously considered as exclusively internal and important. Due to this fact traditional history of philosophy, focused primarily on the study of the most prominent representatives of Western thought, usually men by gender, is replaced by a much broader historically-philosophical canon, which includes a much wider circle of thinkers, representatives of different cultures and types of philosophizing.

Author Biography

Vadym Menzhulin, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy, Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

References

Adamson, P. (2014-2022). Classical Philosophy. A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps (Vols. 1-6). Oxford: Oxford UP.

Adamson, P. (2016, December 31). 20 rules for history of philosophy. History of philosophy without any gaps. https://historyofphilosophy.net/all-20-rules-history-philosophy

Adamson, P. (n.d.). History of philosophy without any gaps. https://historyofphilosophy.net/

Antognazza, M. R. (2015). The Benefit to Philosophy of the Study of Its History. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(1), 161-184. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2014.974020

Beaney, M. (2016). Historiography, Philosophy of History and the Historical Turn in Analytic Philosophy. Journal of the Philosophy of History, 10(2), 211-234. https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341321

Bennett, J. (1971). Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford UP.

Bennett, J. (2001). Learning from Six Philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford UP.

Catana, L. (2014). Doxographical or Philosophical History of Philosophy: On Michael Frede’s Precepts for Writing the History of Philosophy. History of European Ideas, 42(2), 170-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2014.906149

Catana, L., & Lærke, M. (2020). Historiographies of philosophy 1800-1950. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 28(3), 431-441. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2019.1709153

Collins, R. (1998). The Sociology of Philosophies : a Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard UP.

Copenhaver, B. (2020). A normative historiography of philosophy: room for internalism and externalism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 28(1), 177-199. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2019.1608903

Department of Philosophy. (n.d.). The Eighties: a snapshot. Princeton University. https://philosophy.princeton.edu/about/eighties-snapshot

Frede, M. (1987). Introduction. In M. Frede, Essays in Ancient Philosophy (pp. ix-xxvii). Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford UP.

Frede, M. (1988). The History of Philosophy as a Discipline. The Journal of Philosophy, 85(11), 666-672. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil1988851114

Frede, M. (1992). Doxographie, historiographie philosophique de la philosophie. Revue de metaphysique et de morale, 97(3), 311-325.

Hartung, G., & Pluder, V. (2015). From Hegel to Windelband: Historiography of Philosophy in the 19th Century. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110324822

Hutton, S. (2014). Intellectual History and the History of Philosophy. History of European Ideas, 40(7), 925-937. https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2014.882054

Lærke, M., Smith, J. E., & Schliesser, E. (2013). Philosophy and Its History: Aims and Methods in the Study of Early Modern Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford UP. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199857142.001.0001

Menzhulin, V. (2018). Biographical encyclopedia (dictionary) as a genre of the contemporary historiography of philosophy: Anglo-American and Ukrainian experience. [In Ukrainian]. Sententiae, 37(1), 153-167. https://doi.org/10.22240/sent37.01.153

Mitralexis, S. (2018). Parallel, additional or alternative histories of philosophy? Questions on the theory and methodology of the history of philosophy. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 26(6), 1222-1233. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2018.1458281

Normore, C. (2016). The methodology of the history of philosophy. In H. Cappelen, T. Szabó Gendler, & J. Hawthorne (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophical methodology (pp. 27-48). Oxford: Oxford UP. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199668779.013.17

Nora, P. (2014). The Precent, Nation, Memory. [In Ukrainian]. Kyiv: Klio.

Petre, J. (2017, January 8). They Kant be serious! PC students demand white philosophers including Plato and Descartes be dropped from university syllabus. Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098332/They-Kant-PC-students-demand-white-philosophers-including-Plato-Descartes-dropped-university-syllabus.html

Reck, E. (2013). The Historical Turn in Analytic Philosophy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304872

Rorty, R. (1984). The historiography of philosophy: four genres. In R. Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, & Q. Skinner (Eds.), Philosophy in history: essays on the historiography of philosophy (pp. 49-76). Cambridge: Cambridge UP. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625534.006

Rorty, R., Schneewind, J. B., & Skinner, Q. (1984). Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625534

Russell, B. (1900). A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. Cambridge: The University Press.

Skinner, Q. (1969). Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas. History and Theory, 8(1), 3-53. https://doi.org/10.2307/2504188

Sorell, T. (2005). On saying no to history of philsophy. In T. Sorell & G. A. Rogers (Eds.), Analytic philosophy and history of philosophy (pp. 43-60). Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford UP.

Sorell, T. (2018). Experimental philosophy and the history of philosophy. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 26(5), 829-849. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2017.1320971

Sorell, T., & Rogers, G. A. (2005). Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford UP.

Sytsma, J., & Livengood, J. (2016). The theory and practice of experimental philosophy. Peterborough: Broadview Press.

Sytsma, J., & Livengood, J. (2018). On experimental philosophy and the history of philosophy: a reply to Sorell. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 27(3), 635-647. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2018.1539946

Tucker, A. (2009). Introduction. In A. Tucker (Ed.), A companion to the philosophy of history and historiography (pp. 1-6). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444304916.ch1

Watson, R. (2002). What is the History of Philosophy and Why is it Important? Journal of the History of Philosophy, 40(4), 525-528. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2002.0085

Yas, O. V. (2005). Historiography as a term. In V. A. Smolii et al. (Ed.), Entsyklopediia istorii Ukrainy: V.3: E-Y. [In Ukrainian]. Kyiv: Naukova dumka. http://www.history.org.ua/?termin=Istorijgrafija_termin

Zavhorodnii, Y. (2021). Classical Indian philosophy in the Oxford series “History of Philosophy without any gaps”. Adamson, P., Ganeri, J. (2020). Classical Indian Philosophy: a History of Philosophy Without any Gaps. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Volume 5. [In Ukrainian]. Sententiae, 40(2), 66-84. https://doi.org/10.31649/sent40.02.066

Downloads

Abstract views: 738

Published

2022-11-30

How to Cite

Menzhulin, V. (2022). Trending practices and discussions in contemporary English-language historiography of philosophy. Sententiae, 41(3), 43–55. https://doi.org/10.31649/sent41.03.43

Issue

Section

ARTICLES

Metrics

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.