History of Ideas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Beiser
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cambridge School

This article is a defense of the history of ideas as traditionally understood. The history of ideas, as originally conceived, attempted to be both historical and philosophical. Its historical dimension consisted in placing ideas in their historical context and understanding the intentions behind the author; its philosophical dimension consisted in criticism, the internal critique of an author according to his own aims. Modern intellectual or philosophical history has separated these two components. There is the analytical history of philosophy which aims to be primarily critical or philosophical (viz., the approach advocated by Strawson and Bennet), and the historical Cambridge school which aims to be chiefly historical (viz., Skinner and Tully). The article argues that the history of philosophy is best pursued by joining the philosophical and historical approaches; it attempts to show how the attempt to pursue history without philosophy, or philosophy without history, breaks down and suffers from inevitable shortcomings.

Gadamer’s Logic of Question and Answer and the Difference Between the History of Philosophy and the History of Ideas

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-379
Author(s):  
David Vessey
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Principle Of Charity ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer

The key difference between the history of ideas and the history of philosophy is that philosophers always consider their historical studies as potentially contributing to contemporary philosophical practice. Such presentism risks anachronistic readings of texts, but a too narrow focus on the historical context of the text risks limiting its ability to contribute to contemporary philosophizing. The current discussion of the history of philosophy focus entirely on how to understand, and what we can learn from, a philosopher’s claims and arguments. Hans-Georg Gadamer offers a different focus, arguing instead that it is the questions that the text answers that generate insights for contemporary philosophical practice. His focus on questions cuts across the standard ways of thinking about the relation between the history of philosophy and the history of ideas and provides novel answers to some central issues in the philosophy of history, for example how to best articulate a principle of charity.

scholarly journals M. Mandelbaum and Historiography of Philosophy

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-244
Author(s):  
Marina N. Volf
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Holistic Approaches ◽  
History Of

The views of M. Mandelbaum on the historiography of philosophy have undergone a certain evolution. The paper shows the epistemological foundations of Mandelbaum’s historical and philosophical position. From the standpoint of critical realism and its application to social sciences Mandelbaum shows the advantages and disadvantages of the monistic or holistic approaches, partial monisms and pluralism. He considers A. O. Lovejoy's history of ideas to be the most reasonable pluralistic conception, although its use as a historical and philosophical methodology is limited. Intellectual history, which replaced it, should be called a partial monism, however, according to Mandelbaum, it gets a number of advantages if it begins to use a pluralistic methodology. In this version of methodology, the history of philosophy and intellectual history can be identified. The paper also presents some objections of analytic philosophers against this identification.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Michael Frede
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Factual Question ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Question

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the study of the history of philosophy. In general, there is an enormous difference between those who concern themselves with ancient philosophy, those who concern themselves with medieval philosophy, and the students of the history of modern philosophy. And, across this distinction, there is a great variety of approaches. One should not forget that the historiography of philosophy itself in many ways is a product of history and reflects the historical context in which it is pursued. Nevertheless, what this book is interested in is not the factual question of why historians of philosophy do what they do, but the theoretical question, the question of how one ought to conceive of and explain what they do; though they themselves in this work may not in fact be guided by these assumptions and principles, there must be such principles to the extent that their activity is a rational activity. It is also important to note that philosophers tend to criticize historians of philosophy as being unduly historical and not sufficiently philosophical.

Six theoretical paradigms of Eastern European Marxist aesthetics

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-56
Author(s):  
Fu Qilin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
General Survey ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Theoretical Paradigms

The conceptual and methodological contributions of Marxist aesthetics from Eastern European countries like Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and East Germany were productive and significant despite various hurdles faced concerning institutionalization, legitimization and differing theoretical abuses. In its mode of inquiry and discursive practices, Eastern European Marxist aesthetics is both similar and dissimilar to its Western, Soviet, Russian and Chinese counterparts. The specificity here is the function of a unique geographical and socio-historical context, as well as interaction with other contemporary paradigms of thought. The innovative impulses of Eastern European Marxist aesthetics affected six scholarly domains: aesthetics of praxis, theory of realism, critique of modernity, semiotics, theory of genre and cultural theory. This paper provides a general survey of the intellectual achievements of Eastern European Marxist aesthetics across these six domains and will show how this theoretical tradition has influenced the modern history of ideas.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Early Modern Philosophical Canon

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA SHAPIRO
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Questions

ABSTRACT:I reflect critically on the early modern philosophical canon in light of the entrenchment and homogeneity of the lineup of seven core figures: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. After distinguishing three elements of a philosophical canon—a causal story, a set of core philosophical questions, and a set of distinctively philosophical works—I argue that recent efforts contextualizing the history of philosophy within the history of science subtly shift the central philosophical questions and allow for a greater range of figures to be philosophically central. However, the history of science is but one context in which to situate philosophical works. Looking at the historical context of seventeenth-century philosophy of mind, one that weaves together questions of consciousness, rationality, and education, does more than shift the central questions—it brings new ones to light. It also shows that a range of genres can be properly philosophical and seamlessly diversifies the central philosophers of the period.

scholarly journals The Need for an Alternative Narrative to the History of Ideas or To Pay a Debt to Women: A Feminist Approach to Ricœur's Thought

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Fernanda Henriques
Keyword(s):  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Men I ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
The One

This paper explores the thought of Paul Ricœur from a feminist point of view. My goal is to show that it is necessary to narrate differently the history of our culture – in particular, the history of philosophy – in order for wommen to attain a self-representation that is equal to that of men. I seek to show that Ricoeur’s philosophy – especially his approach to the topics of memory and history, on the one hand, and the human capacity for initiative, on the other hand– can support the idea that it is possible and legitimate to tell our history otherwise by envisioning a more accurate truth about ourselves. 

Epicurus in Nineteenth-Century Germany

2020 ◽  
pp. 760-790
Author(s):  
James I. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Unique Point ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

Epicurus marks a unique point of convergence for three unlikely bedfellows in the nineteenth century: Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. Each sees a different “Epicurus” in this fourth-century successor to Democritus, the fifth-century co-founder of atomism. Each renders Epicurus and his materialism into a symptom of modernity’s engagement with antiquity, a role that atomism increasingly played from the Enlightenment onwards. Fresh readings of each of these philosophers contribute to a better understanding of their ways of construing the history of ideas, and in particular their bold reinterpretations of Epicurus himself, in addition to correcting a number of misconceptions surrounding their individual readings of Epicurus, be this in Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy and his Science of Logic, Marx’s dissertation, or Nietzsche’s sprawling corpus of published and unpublished writings.

History as an Interdisciplinary Dialogue: The Case of Philosophy and Economics

2018 ◽  
pp. 229-242
Author(s):  
Lisa Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophy And Economics

This chapter explores the history of philosophy as a resource for interdisciplinary research, drawing on the author’s work on Smith and Hegel for illustration. It briefly sketches some aspects of the relation between political philosophy and economics, and then describes a ‘post-Skinnerian’ approach to the history of philosophy that enters into a dialogue with historical thinkers, taking seriously their historical context but ultimately aiming at answering systematic questions. This approach allows us to garner the insights of thinkers who reflected in an integrated way about questions that today belong to different disciplines. It can help us to uncover implicit assumptions or theoretical gaps in contemporary approaches that are made invisible by the separation of research into different disciplinary fields. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the history of philosophy can inspire us to question the boundaries of disciplines and explore new avenues of research.

The Liaison between Analytic and Ancient Philosophy and Its Consequences

2018 ◽  
pp. 120-139
Author(s):  
Christof Rapp
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Paradigm Case ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S

Is it reasonable to expect that the occupation with history of philosophy contributes to our contemporary philosophical debate? The scholarship on ancient philosophy seems to be a paradigm case for the discussion of this kind of question. In the 1950s and 1960s, philosophers and scholars such as John L. Austin, Gilbert Ryle, G.E.L. Owen, John Ackrill and Gregory Vlastos initiated a new style of scholarship that was influenced by analytic philosophy. This analytic style of ancient philosophy scholarship encouraged philosophers to take arguments presented by Plato or Aristotle more seriously and to import ancient ideas into contemporary debates. It was objected that analytic scholars tend to be thematically narrow and to neglect the historical context. By sketching the development of the first two generations of analytic scholarship this chapter tries to show that analytic scholarship need not be anachronistic and that the gain of this method outweighs possible excesses.

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