I would think that there have been ‘schools of thought’ as long as there existed human thought.
Some simple, some complex. Some popular, some obscure. Some that have endured, some not.
And some that died out, and for reasons unknown have returned to become undead zombie ideas… like the flat earth theory lol.

We might talk about "the history of ideas" because it is part of history, and as we know (I think we at least have some idea) that the conditions of life CHANGE over time, and along with those changes, our thinking.

Do you buy the idea that "how the conditions of life in any give time and place relate to changes in thinking (arts, sciences, philosophy, politics, etc.) is "history"?

If you do, what's your problem with Wayfarer's paragraph? If you don't buy it, what is your definition of history?

Sure, I mean, the history of ideas is really interesting. Love that stuff.

My question was not whether it's worthwhile in general, but how does talk about the history of ideas contribute to philosophical discussion? I mentioned a couple of the answers I'm somewhat familiar with. I could also have mentioned its central role in exegesis, evident in the reading threads we've had dealing with texts by Plato, Hume, Descartes -- texts far enough removed from us that you have to restore some context to understand them well. I've always been inclined to call that sort of thing "history of philosophy" rather than philosophy "proper" -- but I'm not wedded to that view.

It's an open question to me what the place of the history of ideas, and of the history of philosophy, should be in our discussions, and I expect people to give very different answers. My starting point was wondering what @Wayfarer's point was in telling @apokrisis what he did, as quoted above. What effect did he expect that paragraph to have on apo's views?

Heh. I love historicism. It's kind of my schtick to understanding philosophy. Part of that is it gives me a more concrete way of understanding the relationships between ideas. The historical relationships are a good foothold for understanding the conceptual relationships, and generally I understand the idea by understanding the ideas' story. I understand that we cannot conclude that an idea is good, bad, true, or false based upon the history of that idea, though -- I think the genealogical fallacy is a fallacy. I pretty much take on the historicist label as an acknowledgement that there is a difference between philosophy and the history of philosophy -- but tend towards the historicist side to contextualize significance, rather than true/false:good/bad. Maybe that's where the history of ideas' philosophical strength lies? In characterizing significance?

how does talk about the history of ideas contribute to philosophical discussion? — Srap Tasmaner

I think you gave at least part of the answer in your OP.

Lots of people used to believe X, but then in modern times (glossed as appropriate, usually the Enlightenment or the 20th century) people mostly starting believing Y instead, and that's the current orthodoxy, but X has started making a comeback because look! — Srap Tasmaner

Studying the history of ideas helps you understand that things that were once seen as true but now aren't may be true again. More simply - they might have been true all along, or at least had perspectives that were helpful and useful. I've read in more than one place, I can't remember where, that ideas in science and philosophy have fashions. Being in fashion gets you professorships and funding. Being out of fashion doesn't.

And here's the main reason I responded. It gives me the chance to quote one of my favorite sections from my favorite poem by my favorite writer.

For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.
As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To the truths we keep coming back and back to.
So desert it would have to be, so walled
By mountain ranges half in summer snow,
No one would covet it or think it worth
The pains of conquering to force change on.
Scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly
Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk
Blown over and over themselves in idleness.
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew
The babe born to the desert, the sand storm
Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans- — Robert Frost - The Black Cottage

It's an open question to me what the place of the history of ideas, and of the history of philosophy, should be in our discussions, and I expect people to give very different answers — Srap Tasmaner

In authors you mentioned like Derrida, Foucault and Heidegger, a distinction is made between history and historicism. Philosophy is always historical in the sense that the past is changed by how it functions in the present. This as true of historical analysis as it is of fresh thinking. Historicism, by contrast , treats history as a static objective grid that one can traverse without altering its sense. Historicism fails to recognize that history is nothing past and gone but is immediately present and operative in the now that it co-determines. Both American Pragmatism and scientific naturalism can be treated that way, as a past that is still operative now.

My question was not whether it's worthwhile in general, but how does talk about the history of ideas contribute to philosophical discussion? — Srap Tasmaner

But what do you study when you do a philosophy degree but the history of ideas? You hope to learn critical thinking and even eventually join up with some current research project. Yet you get sat down for your first years and walked through the history of philosophy.

Perhaps you can skip ancient Greek metaphysics and start off with Enlightenment epistemology, but it makes sense to understand the context of what has gone before so as to ground what seem the concerns now.

I would say that in fact a problem is that folk skimp their history and don’t realise how much is simply being rehashed with each generation. And also, close study shows how much the telling of the past is a sloppy caricature of what was actually said.

Anaximander is a prime example for me. Philosophy is a social game and its winners write the history. So the complaint might not be that the history is rather irrelevant - which for poor historians, it would be - but that it is a lot of bloody work to be historically accurate.

My starting point was wondering what Wayfarer's point was in telling @apokrisis what he did, as quoted above. What effect did he expect that paragraph to have on apo's views? — Srap Tasmaner

This has its own history. At least five times now I’ve had to respond to the jibe that Peirce was ultimately an idealist because he used the words “objective idealism”. I have to point to the context in which Peirce philosophised - the very churchy world of late-1800s Harvard and Massachusetts academia which placed Peirce under considerable social pressure to conform. And also that Peirce was arguing for semiosis as a general ontology before there was a clear notion of their being genetic and neural codes to match the linguistic and logical codes of human thought.

And if we are talking about the actual zeitgeist that Peirce was responding to, it was his response to Kant that most closely echoed Schelling and Duns Scotus.

But anyway, the history of ideas is important as it is the only way of understanding why folk tend to believe the things that they do. And while science and maths are juggernauts when it comes to the production of new things to know, maybe philosophy only has its history, or it’s creative writing wing.

In authors you mentioned like Derrida, Foucault and Heidegger, a distinction is made between history and historicism. Philosophy is always historical in the sense that the past is changed by how it functions in the present. This as true of historical analysis as it is of fresh thinking. Historicism, by contrast , treats history as a static objective grid that one can traverse without altering its sense. Historicism fails to recognize that history is nothing past and gone but is immediately present and operative in the now that it co-determines. Both American Pragmatism and scientific naturalism can be treated that way, as a past that is still operative now. — Joshs

In this sense I am not a historicist, then. I mostly think about Popper when I think about the accusation of historicist, and that's the name I don't mind taking on. I just don't think there's as much poverty in history as he intimates.

But, this notion you say about history being treated as a static object -- that I do not do. It would go against everything I understand about the writing of history. History is a living subject, not a static Way Things Were, and it's nearly always addressing something present while talking about the past. My more mundane explanation for this is that history is narrative, which itself isn't a list of facts but a story which follows a trajectory of significance. (hence why I highlighted that in my post)

I love historicism — Moliere

Same here.

an acknowledgement that there is a difference between philosophy and the history of philosophy — Moliere

This is applicable in several fields. The history of science isn't science; the history of the arts [literature, painting, music...] isn't "art"; but a decent history requires the historian to be sensitive to, delight in, be familiar with performance, etc, else one gets a ham-fisted treatment. The history of philosophy requires an engagement with the relevant philosophers.

Books about philosophy are sometimes the best approach to a given philosopher, because the about can provide context, background, explanation of terms, and so forth that a general reader might not (probably doesn't) have. That's certainly the case for me.

generally I understand the idea by understanding the ideas' story — Moliere

it makes sense to understand the context of what has gone before so as to ground what seem the concerns now. — apokrisis

That's two votes for better understanding through history, which it's hard to argue with. I've often wished math and science were taught with more of an eye to history.

But what do you study when you do a philosophy degree but the history of ideas? — apokrisis

This is true, but I would put it this way: philosophy curricula more closely resemble literature curricula than they do the sciences or mathematics, and that's slightly odd. (I'm not the only one to have noticed this.) You could say that's a result of our above average scrupulousness, since secondary sources tend to get things wrong or slant them in some way -- but that assumes that what matters most is what Kant or Aristotle or Schmendrick actually meant, and that's a matter of biography, isn't it? We're supposed to be in the ideas business. Kant only matters to us because his ideas are interesting; his ideas aren't interesting because he's the one who had them.

Studying the history of ideas helps you understand that things that were once seen as true but now aren't may be true again. — T Clark

Now that's a specific lesson, kind of a warning really. You've folded in both swings of the fashion pendulum here: what you hold true, even obviously true, may in the not so distant future be considered obviously misguided in any number of unflattering ways; and then the naysayers may themselves be naysayed in turn. There's a whiff of vanitas about the whole proceeding, looked at this way, and one might be tempted to chuck the whole thing. Or you could embrace the ephemeral nature of philosophical struggles and shortlived victories and take giddy pleasure in it -- after all, you needn't worry about having any lasting influence!

I would say that in fact a problem is that folk skimp their history and don’t realise how much is simply being rehashed with each generation. — apokrisis

Indeed. This is even stranger than the phenomenon of fashion in philosophy. But -- coming back a bit to my original question -- it does little good in discussion to point this out, because no victory in philosophy is ever complete, and probably not even lasting. So if you point out to someone that they're taking the same view Schmendrick did in the 30s, they might just add him to the list of people to quote in favor of their position! It's most unlikely that Schmendrick's position was ever definitively refuted, only discredited in some way, or passed by at great speed by fashion. You might even accidentally cause a Schmendrick revival...

But anyway, the history of ideas is important as it is the only way of understanding why folk tend to believe the things that they do. — apokrisis

Now here I think we're closer to a sort of Nietzschean genealogy, and I'll only remark that the implication is that why people think what they do is not what they think -- it's not the arguments and the evidence but the currents of thought they've swum through and been buffeted by. I don't disagree, but it tends not to go over well in conversation, since it amounts to a kind of cultural psychoanalysis, and that's rude.

I love historicism — Moliere

Maybe I spoke too soon. I like reading history. I'll just stop there.

I've often wished math and science were taught with more of an eye to history. — Srap Tasmaner

Seconded. I feel like the scientific pedagogy tries to highlight history but it's not focused on it, so it's kind of bad history so it's definitely something you have to take up on your own if you're interested. The pedagogy is designed to teach people to be employable rather than give a deeper insight.

Maybe I spoke too soon. I like reading history. I'll just stop there. — BC

:rofl:

So here's the question: what sort of point are you making when you post something like this? — Srap Tasmaner

Thanks for picking up on that. First of all, why is that paragraph 'weirdly factually wrong'? What exactly is wrong with it?

The history of ideas is a recognised academic sub-discipline, often associated with comparative religion. As I think I might have mentioned, it is associated with a 1936 book The Great Chain of Being: A Study in the History of an Idea, Arthur Lovejoy. The title conveys the gist well enough, it concerns the idea of ancient provenance of the heirarchical nature of being, the 'scala natura', extending from minerals at bottom, up through vegetative, animal, human, angelic, with the One/God at the top of the heirarchy, cascading or emanating the lower levels. (It is actually rather a turgid read, by the way.) I am of the view that the loss of the sense of there being a vertical, qualitative dimension of being, is a real loss, which has given rise to the 'flatland' or 'one-dimensionality' of modernity (note this paragraph about how even up to the 17th century philosophy accepted that there are degrees of reality. )

I learned about history of ideas as a discipline through Comparative Religion which was the subject of my undergraduate degree; one of our lecturers was adept in that approach, and we also read quite a bit of Mircea Eliade, the influential scholar of religion, who has a lot to say on it. It is also a theme in anthropology, which I studied alongside comparative religion (indeed anthropology and sociology of religion, Max Weber and Peter Berger, is another contributing sub-discipline). Then there were scholars such as Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith, Ninian Smart, and others, who cover world religions and also touch on the important themes of the philosophia perennis (a term coined by Leibniz denoting the idea that there is a current of perennial wisdom which surfaces in diverse world wisdom traditions.) I will also mention that I started my undergrad degree with a reading of Russell's HWP, which of course is very much an extended essay in history of ideas.

Another scholar I was introduced to was Edward Conze, a 20th century Buddhologist and likewise historian of ideas. He has this to say in an essay on Buddhist philosophy and its European parallels:

Until about 1450, as branches of the same "perennial philosophy, " Indian and European philosophers disagreed less among themselves than with many of the later developments of European philosophy. The "perennial philosophy" is in this context defined as a doctrine which holds (1) that as far as worth-while knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; (2) that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others; and (3) that the wise of old have found a "wisdom" which is true, although it has no empirical basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that in fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us by which we can attain direct contact with actual reality -through the Prajñāpāramitā of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the sophia of Aristotle and others, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and (4) that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents

This last being the represented in figure of 'the sage' in philosophy. (Incidentally, Kant is sometimes referred to as 'the sage of Konisberg'.)

I suppose I will also mention Alan Watts whose books triggered my interest in this subject, cheifly The Supreme Identity and The Book on the Taboo on Knowing Who you Are. I won't try and recap his ideas in this post other than to say his overall thrust is that modern materialist culture kind of institutionalises or normalises what the Eastern sages would characterise as Avidyā or ignorance. This was of course a counter-cultural attitude.

I'll leave it at that for now, I have family commitments today which will keep me away for the rest of the day but will come back later. Thanks for the question.

I've often wished math and science were taught with more of an eye to history. — Srap Tasmaner

100% what's missing. As if this wasn't the result of human efforts but some sterile equations and information. Ridiculous how education essentializes and splits up technical topics cleaving it of any human element.

The pedagogy is designed to teach people to be employable rather than give a deeper insight. — Moliere

Holistic understanding of how thought developed over time is definitely not what most institutions try to market to people. There are some exceptions. St. John's, I believe tries to teach students through primary sources, Great Books tradition, and a more historical approach, but it's few and far between.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapolis/Santa_Fe)

This is true, but I would put it this way: philosophy curricula more closely resemble literature curricula than they do the sciences or mathematics, and that's slightly odd. — Srap Tasmaner

That seems a better question then. How could one restructure the pedagogy to reflect a different approach? Oddly, I can remember exactly how my introductory philosophy classes started, but not the science ones. But the air of certainty and present tense is definitely what was intended to be conveyed.

And I don't think you would want philosophy to exude that kind of authority where the right views are already there to be learnt?

So does the historical approach not go very well with the mature practice of philosophy?

Kant only matters to us because his ideas are interesting; his ideas aren't interesting because he's the one who had them. — Srap Tasmaner

I certainly agree with that. And you can only make an academic career by having ideas of your own that your peers find interesting. Even if it is just offering a revisionist telling of philosophical history.

But what you learn from close reading of the big names is as much the way they thought as what they thought. You can get into their thinking and attitudes and so discover the habits that work in the philosophical game.

Yet how would you set up Philosophy 101? It would have to be some kind of map of the field that oriented students the right way. It would have to use some surprises to get the kids gripped and thinking.

The most philosophical moments for me came in fact from my first psychophysics class were the professor used the example of the Mach bands that give sharp outlines to all boundaries in our visual field. I walked outside and for the first time noticed the contrast edging around the dark buildings against the bright sky. Or at least understood the neural mechanism responsible for what had seemed a defect of clear vision and the processing logic behind it.

The things I would have in my introductory class would be the epistemology of modelling and dialectical ontology of metaphysics. So Kant and Anaximander would be useful historical starting points. But a quick sketch of the context in their times would be enough.

Then one could add a review of comparative philosophy – pay the necessary lip service to theology and PoMo as cultural traditions, along with science, Eastern traditions and the general theory of socially-constructed belief systems. :grin:

That's two votes for better understanding through history, which it's hard to argue with. I've often wished math and science were taught with more of an eye to history. — Srap Tasmaner

I think it's likely a problem of complexity. Maths and science have cutting edges in ways philosophy really doesn't. Philosophy on the whole is a much simpler suite of ideas, even being, as I remember reading in Hegel somewhere "the same old stew, reheated" (although I cannot find the quote anywhere, maybe I dreamed it).

Math and Science are certainly not the same old stew reheated, they unarguably progress.

I'd say philosophy does, too.

And the arts in general, for that matter.

What's mysterious is that philosophy progresses, but it doesn't progress in the same ways we usually measure progress -- power, fairness, abundance, stability, pleasure, tribe.

Math I can't say. But science I feel progresses in a different mode, more or less. Progress is relative to some value, at least, so I'd suggest that the difference is in values between practitioners of science and practitioners of philosophy, rather than a difference in unarguable progress.

There are narratives that tell us how much better we were in some distant past. There are others that tell of a movement away from the shadows of our ancestors. The 'history of ideas' is a record of previous opinions. It can also reflect the mutability of human life.

One of the odd features of the 'golden age' thinking is that it undercuts the universal as a continuity between all the many articulations of being a particular kind of being. Many models have emerged to imagine how we have changed or not changed. How will we compare these models to each other?

Or are we in the land of Protagoras where there is nothing to learn outside of one's own theater?

'Progress' is an ambiguous term, usually carrying the idea of improvement. So, yeah, of course there has been a progression of philosophical ideas.

Any improvement (according to some) or worsening (according to others) of philosophical understanding has arguably come on the back of scientific progress.

First of all, why is that paragraph 'weirdly factually wrong'? — Wayfarer

Because you've never been clear on the difference between analytic philosophy and ordinary language philosophy. We don't need to go into it here.

But now I get to ask the same question again, because this was another post just like the one I was asking about. All very interesting I'm sure, but what effect was the history of the history of ideas supposed to have on me? (Maybe you're just "catching me up," in your view, so we can have a proper conversation, but as it happens I already know what the history of ideas is and I've read some of the stuff you mentioned.)

The pedagogy is designed to teach people to be employable rather than give a deeper insight. — Moliere

I don't think that's quite it -- obviously for some things, sure, but science and mathematics are just different, and I don't think it's for the reason you suggest. ---- But it looks like this thread has already changed topic! Now it's a thread about how we teach science and how we teach philosophy, and that's fine.

Ridiculous how education essentializes and splits up technical topics cleaving it of any human element. — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure that's true either, if you recognize that there are skills needed and technical background needed to do this sort of work, and the curriculum is designed to get you up and running, able to do mathematics, to do scientific research -- and those are great human endeavors! They don't have to focus on the human element because you are the human element and if everything goes right, you'll be thrilled to head to campus or to the lab or to the site everyday because you get to do science all day! This system largely works, and you can see just by peeking into any lab at the nearest research university, grad students listening to some tunes and doing their work -- a perfect life if there were more money.

St. John's, I believe tries to teach students through primary sources — schopenhauer1

True. I've known some Johnnies very well (and married one, a long time ago). They learn geometry from Euclid and physics from Newton.

And I don't think you would want philosophy to exude that kind of authority where the right views are already there to be learnt? — apokrisis

Absolutely. But why? Because we don't have any certainty to convey... With the sciences -- geez, with medicine especially, it seems -- it's becoming commonplace for half of what you learned in school to be falsified by the time you retire if not much sooner. (There are some numbers on this in The Half-Life of Facts, but I forget what they are.)

But what you learn from close reading of the big names is as much the way they thought as what they thought. — apokrisis

Certainly. When I was young, I read philosophy in a believing frame of mind, acquiring ideas I could endorse or not. Got older and for a long time have read philosophy with little interest in the 'doctrine' at stake. I enjoy Wittgenstein primarily because we have such an extraordinary record of an interesting mind at work. I just like watching him go, and I think I've learned from how he thinks. I've enjoyed watching Dummett at work because his command of logic is formidable and he sees things I have to work through slowly. Sellars also has an unusual mind. I even like the tortuous way he writes. He's every bit as intricate as Derrida, but not for the same reasons at all. ---- Anyway, big yes, and I think this is an excellent specific reason for reading original texts, but then that only throws into sharper relief my original question: what does the history of ideas contribute to such an experience?

Yet how would you set up Philosophy 101? — apokrisis

It used to be my ambition to teach Philosophy 101 using Calvin and Hobbes as the text. (Wittgenstein somewhere said you could teach a class in philosophy using only jokes for your text.) There is one textbook I admire, Contemporary Epistemology by Jonathan Dancy, later known mainly for writings on ethics. Begins with two problems, Gettier and skepticism, and then goes through historical accounts of knowledge noting how they handle these two key problems or fail to. I liked the problem-oriented structure. It's a bit ahistorical in one sense, a very mainstream Anglo-analytic sort of thing, but it really engages with a lot of stuff and brings it to life. Nice book. Probably not quite what I'd be after now, but a solid example of how good a philosophy textbook can be, in my view.

There are narratives — Paine

If I can abuse your post a bit, several people have suggested that knowing the history of a philosopher's ideas helps them understand those ideas, but there is another way to go here, which is to suggest that it's narrative that matters. (Hey @Isaac.) That is, that we don't naturally deal with 'naked' ideas, but with ideas as they occur within narrative -- that's what our thinking is organized around and pretending to discuss an idea 'in isolation' means you're probably just embedding it in some other narrative without acknowledging that transfer. And that probably means distorting its original meaning -- but that might not be our primary interest anyway, as I've noted. --- At any rate, if we can only deal with ideas as elements of some narrative, we might as well face up to that up front, even if there's no decisively privileged way to do that.

what effect was the history of the history of ideas supposed to have on me? — Srap Tasmaner

That’s up to you. In the context that started this dialogue, I claimed that C S Peirce was part of the generally idealist attitude of the philosophy of his day. Per the SEP entry:

This notion of all things as being evolved psycho-physical unities of some sort places Peirce well within the sphere of what might be called “the grand old-fashioned metaphysicians,” along with such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Whitehead, et al. Some contemporary philosophers might be inclined to reject Peirce out of hand upon discovering this fact. Others might find his notion of psycho-physical unities not so very offputting or indeed even attractive. What is crucial is that Peirce argued that mind pervades all of nature in varying degrees: it is not found merely in the most advanced animal species.

This pan-psychistic view, combined with his synechism, meant for Peirce that mind is extended in some sort of continuum throughout the universe. Peirce tended to think of ideas as existing in mind in somewhat the same way as physical forms exist in physically extended things. He even spoke of ideas as “spreading” out through the same continuum in which mind is extended. This set of conceptions is part of what Peirce regarded as (his own version of) Scotistic realism, which he sharply contrasted with nominalism. He tended to blame what he regarded as the errors of much of the philosophy of his contemporaries as owing to its nominalistic disregard for the objective existence of form.

But that this aspect of Peirce is routinely deprecated as incompatible with naturalism. I think it is at least germane to the OP.

(BTW a rather good Medium essay on current idealist philosophy came up in my feed just now. Don’t think it’s paywalled although I am a subscriber.)

One way (hardly the only way) to look at philosophy historically is as a zoo of intense personalities who react to those who came before and influence those who come after.

Simple exposure to a many opposed personalities, all of them able to make a strong case for their own interpretation of reality, should not IMO be underrated. As others have put it, we are mytholgoical animals, and in philosophy we found a second-order tradition where our orienting myth, which we can't live without, is subject to constant modification -- like Neurath's boat.

The technical issues can be fascinating to me, but I suppose the existential issues remain primary. What is a person's fundamental metaphor for reality? What pose do they take in relation to it ? In other words, what kind of costume does the hero wear and what's the scenery like ? (Dramaturgical ontology?) This would include things like whether philosophy is understood more as mathematics than theatre in the first place.

That is, that we don't naturally deal with 'naked' ideas, but with ideas as they occur within narrative -- that's what our thinking is organized around and pretending to discuss an idea 'in isolation' means you're probably just embedding it in some other narrative without acknowledging that transfer. — Srap Tasmaner

I lean toward us as the narrative (mythological) animal. We can also just look and see that humans mostly talk about ideas in practical contexts -- trying to persuade someone, prove one is educated, make a woman laugh, etc.

What is this house of personality ? I think of mirrors reflected in mirrors or Indra's net. We aspire perhaps to Shakespearean completeness or perhaps instead some thin dry purity or ? Someone may invent a new way to win tomorrow, though it'll probably be a blend of what came before, same old sawdust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra%27s_net

Because of the clarity of the jewels, they are all reflected in and enter into each other, ad infinitum. Within each jewel, simultaneously, is reflected the whole net.

With the sciences -- geez, with medicine especially, it seems -- it's becoming commonplace for half of what you learned in school to be falsified by the time you retire if not much sooner. — Srap Tasmaner

To be fair to science, how much free thinking does society really want or need? Especially at the introductory level, you want to impress a certain useful rigidity of thought on all those who are only going to need to apply learnt algorithms on the grown-up world.

And those who do philosophy at university only need to come out with a useful facility for critical thought and perhaps show some comfort with uncertainty in the grown-up world. The history of philosophy is not relevant in the job market.

Medicine became engineering applied to biology and then got corrupted by Big Pharma and Big Food. So no surprise it is what it is.

Again, how should philosophy be taught? That winds up being answered by whether it serves some useful purpose as far as society goes.

I think this is an excellent specific reason for reading original texts, but then that only throws into sharper relief my original question: what does the history of ideas contribute to such an experience? — Srap Tasmaner

You're right. If you aren't looking for a totalising world view, then browsing other smart minds is at least a pleasant diversion. I like reading crackpots for the same reason. It is useful to be able to tell the one from the other via intimate literary acquaintance.

But one could also be seeking that totalising world view that both philosophy and science have as a selling point. And a history of ideas – in both spheres – is important to that project.

I'm not sure that's true either, if you recognize that there are skills needed and technical background needed to do this sort of work, and the curriculum is designed to get you up and running, able to do mathematics, to do scientific research -- and those are great human endeavors! They don't have to focus on the human element because you are the human element and if everything goes right, you'll be thrilled to head to campus or to the lab or to the site everyday because you get to do science all day! This system largely works, and you can see just by peeking into any lab at the nearest research university, grad students listening to some tunes and doing their work -- a perfect life if there were more money. — Srap Tasmaner

Not my style, but I get it. As I said, it doesn't market well, and admitted as such. I'll only leave you that pragmatics doesn't mean it's good. If anything, our society has shifted too far into the "because its expedient for technology and market's sake" and not for actual understanding and context. But keep devil's advocating, I get it. I get the other side, so don't actually.

the "argument from the history of ideas". The general form is: Lots of people used to believe X, but then in modern times (glossed as appropriate, usually the Enlightenment or the 20th century) people mostly starting believing Y instead, and that's the current orthodoxy, but X has started making a comeback because look! A, B and C are contemporaries who believe X and they say Y is on the way out!" — Srap Tasmaner

Yep, that's @Wayfarer. As far as I'm concerned, this approach to discussion is a crutch used in lieu of admitting he isn't clear on, or hasn't thought through, the topic at issue well enough to reply cogently with his own thoughts.

I used to always ignore these paragraphs ...

I always do (until its clear nothing significant follows). :up:

So here's the question: what sort of point are you making when you post something like this? 

Maybe it's uncharitable (or impolite) of me to say so, but after a decade and a half of exchanges with Wayfarer I am convinced that his "appeal to the history of ideas" is used to indicate that he disagrees with me because he agrees with some historical figure/s rather than critically engaging my points and/or defeating my arguments. It's a rhetorical dodge, nothing more. Wayfarer is quite well read, no doubt, but, IME, he's much more skilled at arguing to a foregone conclusion (rationalizing) than validly arguing from clear, explicable premises (reasoning). Typical 'religious/idealist' mindset. No matter how interesting his citations are – often they are – they're just lengthy footnotes to 'the reasons' he fails to give. :eyes:

One way (hardly the only way) to look at philosophy historically is as a zoo of intense personalities who react to those who came before and influence those who come after. — plaque flag

Yeah, but it's not only other inmates of the zoo that matter, not by a long shot, especially if it's more like your

fundamental metaphor for reality — plaque flag

that matters most. It's someone who made a strong impression on you, or it's something in the zeitgeist, or it's the character of the people you interact with over and over, every day. Not just other philosophers. --- And if it is, we don't need the broader history of ideas but only the history of philosophy.

I'm sympathetic to the rest of both of your posts, but I'm still a little hesitant to put narrative front and center. I think it may be the fundamental mode of language use, and thus everything built on language use, but there are layers of life management below language, and I can't quite see language displacing those.



Nothing much for me to take issue with there, but I still have the issue I started with. What I haven't heard yet from anybody is some sort of full-throated defense of, I don't know, 'decentering' philosophy in philosophical discussion, not taking its self-image seriously, and treating it instead as only a part of Something Bigger, something like the history of ideas, the Great Story of Culture, whatever. --- I'm trying to keep an open mind, since my instinct is to treat these moves as some species of informal fallacy, which is, it happens, the sort of thing I find interesting sometimes, but I was looking for a more charitable take.

What I haven't heard yet from anybody is some sort of full-throated defense of, I don't know, 'decentering' philosophy in philosophical discussion, not taking its self-image seriously, and treating it instead as only a part of Something Bigger, something like the history of ideas, the Great Story of Culture, whatever. — Srap Tasmaner

FWIW, I think that's already implicit in the narrative, which includes Nietzsche and eventually Heidegger, Rorty, and Derrida, pretty much explicitly melting philosophy into poetry, cultural criticism, etc. Even Comte way back thought of philosophy as a merely prescientific stage of human thought. It's what I try to gesture at with Shakespeare as a symbol for 'infinite personality.'

I think of Harold Bloom and Tristram Tzara and James Joyce (to name a few) as part of the same general story as the 'official' philosophers. I'm reminded of Hegel trying to put down Schlegel's notion of Irony in his lectures on fine art -- as if Hegel was afraid of being merely an earnest character in some joker's novel.

You might find this amusing if you haven't already seen it.

“Philosophy is the true home of irony, which might be defined as logical beauty,” Schlegel writes in Lyceumfragment 42: “for wherever men are philosophizing in spoken or written dialogues, and provided they are not entirely systematic, irony ought to be produced and postulated.” The task of a literary work with respect to irony is, while presenting an inherently limited perspective, nonetheless to open up the possibility of the infinity of other perspectives: “Irony is, as it were, the demonstration [epideixis] of infinity, of universality, of the feeling for the universe” (KA 18.128); irony is the “clear consciousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely teeming chaos” (Ideas 69). A literary work can do this, much as Schlegel’s Lucinde had, by presenting within its scope a range of possible alternate plots or by mimicking the parabasis in which the comic playwright interposed himself within the drama itself or the role of the Italian buffo or clown (Lyceumfragment 42) who disrupts the spectator’s narrative illusion.

Yeah, that's not bad. I've figured out what philosophy really is dozens of times, but I'm starting to think you can just not do that.