Question Generally in math and the sciences, theories are studied and given attention only insofar as they are judged correct. In philosophy, however, many historical views are examined which very few modern philosophers would endorse or even take seriously. Why should historical studies in philosophy be more useful than like studies in other disciplines?

Accepted:
March 17, 2011

Comments

While there is progress in philosophy, what counts as philosophical progress is, I think, very different from what counts as progress in math and the sciences. There is no need for working mathematicians and scientists to know the history of their fields in order to contribute to 'state of the art' research, for most branches of most of the natural sciences build on theories that have been empirically confirmed, and mathematics builds on proofs known to be true, and so the present of these fields is what is most important to the researcher who wishes to contribute to ongoing work in those fields. Because, in contrast, philosophy consists in advancing arguments in favor of theses that cannot be resolved by appeal to facts or known with certainty, the history of philosophy is part of its present in a way that the history of (most of) the natural sciences and of mathematics is not part of their present. Not only is there a standing possibility in philosophy that some repressed historical view might go 'live' again and actually be drawn on in work in contemporary philosophy, since an important part of philosophy consists in posing, rather than resolving, questions, attention to the history of philosophy can lead philosophers to see new ways of posing questions of current concern and different questions to raise, as well as offering to them solutions to problems of current interest. To my mind, one important respect--there are others, of course--in which philosophy, despite the pretensions of certain of its practitioners over the centuries, differs from the natural sciences and mathematics, is that philosophy historically is a way to do philosophy, whereas one cannot 'do' mathematics or natural science historically. This is one important respect in which philosophy is, to my mind, a humanistic discipline, because its past is so inextricably bound up with its present. (To be sure, many philosophers have no interest in philosophy's history, and they need not, although I myself am inclined to think that all philosophers would benefit from some acquaintance with those aspects of philosophy's past relevant to their work. But this may simply reflect the prejudice of someone who works primarily in the history of philosophy.)