Internal History of Philosophy

I defend an internal history of philosophy that prioritizes philosophical reasons over other cultural factors. This approach contrasts with a broadly contextualist endeavour, which invokes cultural factors without clear ground. I argue that the latter path is either too permissive or it leads to aim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFilozofia (Bratislava) Vol. 78; no. 10; pp. 848 - 864
Main Author Hangai, Attila
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Institute of Philosophy SAS, v.v.i 01.01.2023
Subjects
contextualist history of philosophy
historiography
internal history of philosophy
Michael Frede
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Summary:I defend an internal history of philosophy that prioritizes philosophical reasons over other cultural factors. This approach contrasts with a broadly contextualist endeavour, which invokes cultural factors without clear ground. I argue that the latter path is either too permissive or it leads to aiming at a complete historical account. Neither way is acceptable: the former obliterates the correctness of interpretation; the latter dissolves the history of philosophy in general history and is practically impossible. Instead, the internal history I propose – based primarily on Michael Frede’s and Maurice Mandelbaum’s historiography – prioritizes philosophical reasoning and appeals to external contextual factors in a principled way when it is necessary to supplement philosophical considerations.
ISSN:0046-385X
2585-7061
DOI:10.31577/filozofia.2023.78.10.4