Rabu, 10 Agustus 2011

The History of Philosophy as Philosophy: (7). Shapes Of History











The positions and arguments
of major philosophers are understood
within a
framework of assumptions, often tacit, about the larger
shape of
philosophy’s past. These assumptions concern the motivating
problems, aims, and also the
achievements of past philosophers
or
‘schools’ of philosophers. Evaluation of achievements
may be
expected to vary as the present philosophical climate varies.
None the less, historians of philosophy,
in pursuing contextual
methodology, should seek as
much as possible to work upward
from
past philosophers’ own statements in establishing the aims or
philosophical motives of individuals or
schools. They might also
seek, in
the first instance, to gauge their evaluations by contextually
appropriate standards.





Often, philosophical history
has been given shape by dividing
philosophers
into competing schools, characterized as responding
to one
or more central problems. Kant divided the philosophers
before
himself into ‘intellectualists’ (like Plato) and ‘sensualists’
(like Epicurus) with regard to the
primary object of knowledge,
and,
with respect to the origin of knowledge, into ‘empiricists’
(Aristotle and Locke) and ‘noologists’
(those who follow
nous, or the
intellect: Plato and Leibniz). These dichotomies were to be
overcome by, or synthesized in, his own
critical philosophy.
Others in Kant’s time added a
‘sceptical’ school. In late-nineteenthcentury
histories,
the period from Descartes to Kant was variously
categorized,
in terms of nationality; metaphysical versus critical
approaches
(with Locke, Berkeley, and Hume among the latter);
systematic,
empirical, and critical approaches; and rationalist,
empiricist,
sceptical, and critical ones.





In more recent historical
narratives, the theme of scepticism has
been
used to characterize the development of early modern philosophy
within a framework of rationalism,
empiricism, and critical
philosophy.
In this shaping of history, Descartes raised a sceptical
challenge
that he was unable to answer adequately; Locke, Berkeley,
and Hume
pursued it further, in successive steps; and Kant sought
to
answer Hume’s sceptical challenge with his first
Critique. As an organizing theme for early modern
philosophy, scepticism has
obvious
limits, since Spinoza, Leibniz, and Locke paid scant
attention
to it, Descartes used scepticism as a tool but was not
seriously
threatened by it, and Kant had little interest in discussing
scepticism about the external world
until he was accused of it in
early
reviews of his first
Critique.
Further, Berkeley’s classification
as an
empiricist, proto-Humean sceptic can be challenged,
notwithstanding
his use of certain Lockean principles and Hume’s
subsequent
use of Berkeleyan arguments. Berkeley affirmed a
‘notion’
of spirit as an active substance, upon which he sought
to
establish an immaterialist metaphysics—not a particularly
‘empiricist’
project.





Given the renewed interest in
history of philosophy, there has in
fact
been surprisingly little explicit discussion of periodization,
classification, and narrative themes. If
the sceptical master narrative
for
early modern philosophy is abandoned (as it should be, while
acknowledging various sceptical
traditions), new themes and
shapes
will need to be developed. These should take into account
the
early modern penchant for investigating the power and scope of
human understanding (which doesn’t
require sceptical motivation),
the
relations between philosophy and the sciences, and developments
in value theory.





The shape of philosophy’s
history from the late nineteenth to the
end of
the twentieth century has yet to be formed. In anglophone
scholarship,
efforts toward creating this history include work in the
history
of ‘analytic’ philosophy and the history of the philosophy of
science. The task is large, and the
surface has barely been scratched.
In the
history of analytic philosophy, beyond the emphasis on logic


and language as pursued by Michael Dummett and others,
further
themes need investigating. These should
address the widespread
philosophical interest, in
the first half of the twentieth century, in
sense
perception, knowledge, and mind. Perhaps as a result of the
ensconcement of behaviourist attitudes
within later analytic philosophy,
little
attention has been paid to early-twentieth-century
theories
of mind and the mind–body relation. One context for these
topics
is the writings of the neo-Kantians on the distinction between
the Naturwissenschaften and Geisteswissenschaften. Thus
far,
work on the history of the philosophy of
science in the twentieth
century
has focused mainly on the Vienna Circle and its surroundings.
The topic might be widened to include
American approaches
initiated before 1930 and
carried on afterward, French work in
history
and philosophy of science, and the ongoing relation between
science and metaphysics. Sufficient
critical distance from the
reflexive
charge of ‘psychologism’ may have been attained by now
to
permit the extensive turn-of-the-century relations between philosophy
and psychology to be studied on their
own terms, and in a
way that recognizes the many
influences of the new psychology on
philosophy
at this time.





As philosophers, historians
of philosophy should be prepared to
examine
their enterprise philosophically. Discussions in the earlier
historiographical literature on the
methodology of interpreting
particular
texts have continued in recent work. However, larger
questions
about periodization and narrative themes, also raised in


the earlier literature, have not been vigorously pursued.
The recent
bounty of work in the history of
philosophy should provide the
materials
needed to support explicit reflection on the shapes of
philosophical
history.





As philosophers, historians of philosophy should also be prepared to relate the positions of the past
(contextually understood)
to the
positions of the present, and to offer to present-day philosophy
insights gleaned from history on both
the structures of and
solutions to philosophical
problems.








Source : Sorell, Tom and
G. A. J. Rogers.(2005), Analytic Philosophy
and
History of Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon
Press
).











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