Question A very popular view in academic philosophy is that knowledge of the history of philosophy is important for doing contemporary work in philosophy. But so much of the history of philosophy is filled with bad arguments and false theses, which serious people would never subscribe to. How does painstaking familiarity with ancient mistakes and false propositions help us do philosophy today? It seems to me that false claims cannot ground anything -- or add anything valuable to what we know now. They are false!

Accepted:
October 17, 2005

Comments

I don't think that the view that knowledge of the history of philosophy is important for doing contemporary work in philosophy is "very popular": in fact, until very recently, few philosophers would have subscribed to it. I'm not convinced that knowledge of the history of philosopy is important for doing contemporary work in philosophy. But I do think that the history of philosophy is philosophically valuable.

One respect in which the history of philosophy is valuable is that it provides a worked-out laboratory of positions on various topics. Sometimes a position in the history of philosophy may be drawn on to resolve a contemporary question. Reflection on the shortcomings of positions in the history of philosophy may also lead one to articulate a new response to a contemporary philosophical problem. Second, in studying the history of philosophy, one can come to appreciate the contingency, or historicity, of philosophical questions themselves; studying the history of philosophy can therefore help the philosopher to attend to the implicit assumptions and presuppositions in contemporary philosophical questions. She may therefore come to be in a better position to recast contemporary philosophical questions than someone who simply assumes that such questions must be well-formed and therefore must admit of an answer. Finally, contemporary philosophers sometimes frame their own positions in respect to historical positions: an understanding of the history of philosophy may enable one better to understand the contemporary position.

For some reflections on the value of the history of philosophy, you might look at Analytic Philosophy and the History of Philosophy (Oxford, 2005), edited by Tom Sorell and G. A. J. Rogers.

Here is an additional (and very ahistorical) reason for studying some history of philosophy. The best philosophers of the past had more philosophical talent than any philosopher now living.

I completely agree with the reasons Sean Greenberg gives for thinking that the history of philosophy is philosophically valuable, but I'm inclined to think that knowledge of philosophy's history is important for doing contemporary work, for exactly the reasons he offers. Knowledge of the history of philosophy helps contemporary philosophers to avoid re-inventing the wheel, with respect to both the questions we ask and the solutions we propose.

More generally, I would add that, while false claims can't 'ground' anything, they can be extremely valuable as pointers towards more promising directions. The possibility of learning from one's mistakes shouldn't be underestimated!