HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY OF PHILOSOPHY

The term history of philosophy is often used in two different senses. In one, it refers to past events (res gestae ) and, in another, to accounts of those events (historiae rerum gestarum ). "The history of ancient Greek philosophy" can be taken to indicate views entertained by Greek philosophers, but also the accounts that later historians give of those views. The positions Aristotle takes in his Metaphysics are part of the first but not of the second, whereas those adopted by Joseph Owens in The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (1951) are part of the second but not the first.

The term historiography of philosophy can also be taken in two senses. According to one, it refers to accounts of past events, and so it is interchangeable with history when this term is used in the second sense mentioned above. But historiography of philosophy can also be used to mean the discipline that studies and establishes the procedures to be followed in accounts of the views from past philosophers. Aquinas's statement, "whatever is moved is moved by another," is part of the history and historiography of philosophy in the first sense mentioned. But the claim, "A proper understanding of Aquinas's view, that whatever is moved is moved by another, presented in the Summa theologiae, requires that we look into what he says about movement elsewhere in his writings," is part of historiography when this is understood as a discipline.

In addition, both the history and the historiography of philosophy need to be distinguished from the philosophy of the history of philosophy. This last studies the history of philosophy understood as past events in order to make claims about its nature and how it develops in general. In doing so, it may refer to particular events of that history, but its primary aim is not to account for them. For example, philosophers of the history of philosophy might claim that philosophy develops according to certain stages, but when they identify the stages through which ancient philosophy passed in particular, they do so to illustrate or establish the first kind of claim.

Because the history of philosophy, the historiography of philosophy, and the philosophy of the history of philosophy are closely connected, their tasks are not often distinguished and philosophers engaged in the pursuit of one also frequently pursue the others. For the sake of clarity, however, this entry will keep them separate, concentrating only on the issues pertaining to the historiography of philosophy when this is understood as the study of the procedures to be followed in the investigation of the philosophical past and of the philosophical issues that this kind of study raises.

Six of these issues have been the focus of most discussions: (1) What kind of claim are historians of philosophy entitled to make? (2) What is the relation between philosophy and the study of its history? (3) What is the value of the study of the history of philosophy for philosophy? (4) What is the role of texts in the study of the history of philosophy? (5) What approach should historians of philosophy use? And (6) what are the main genres historians of philosophy employ?

1. Claims

Disagreements concerning the kind of claim that historians of philosophy are supposed to make center on three possibilities: descriptive, interpretative, and evaluative. A descriptive claim consists of a proposition that accurately (1) presents what particular philosophers said or thought or (2) recounts contemporaneous and later views concerning the positions of the philosophers under study. These claims take forms such as "X stated that P," "X's stating that P is the reason that X gave for holding Q," "M, a contemporary of X, stated that X did not hold that P," "N, a later historian of philosophy, disagreed with M as to X's view," and so on.

In interpretative claims, historians of philosophy go beyond what particular philosophers and their historians said or thought, in order to establish nonexplicit relations between the stated or unstated views of a philosopher or a historian, or between the views of two or more philosophers or historians. They also formulate broad generalizations that purport to characterize the overall approach used by a philosopher or the philosophers from a particular period, and to translate the views of historical figures into the languages and conceptual frameworks of contemporary historians in order effectively to communicate their meaning. Interpretative claims can take various forms, such as: "X held that Q," "X held that Q because X held that P," "X held that Q because Y held that P," "X's view that P led to the abandonment of ∼P by her contemporaries," and so on.

Evaluative claims make judgments about the value of philosophical views from the past. These judgments may concern truth, validity, coherence, adequacy, completeness, clarity, social relevance, and so on. Here are some forms that these claims may take: "X's view, that P, is true," "X's argument A is invalid," "X and Y were right in formulating problem P as they did," "X's view that P is a backward step in the history of philosophy," "X's position had an adverse effect on society S," and so on.

The question pertaining to descriptive, interpretative, and evaluative claims that concerns historiographers in particular is the following: Are historians of philosophy supposed to make claims that are descriptive, interpretative, evaluative, or some combination of these? At one extreme, positivist historiographers answer that historians should consign themselves to descriptive claims. Their job is to describe, and not to interpret or to evaluate, the philosophical past (Lafrance 1983). At the other extreme, historicist historiographers maintain that historians should merely be concerned with interpretation and evaluation because description is impossible. Every historical event is unique and cannot be reproduced either in reality or thought. Therefore, the attempt to describe and understand the past as it was in itself, independently of how it appears to the present, is bound to fail. The job of historians is to present the past as it looks to them at present (Collingwood 1946).

Both positivist and historicist historiographers accuse each other of betraying the historical enterprise. According to the first, the second do so because they fail to account for the past by falling into Anachronism, that is, reading the present into the past. But historicists retort that positivists betray history because they misunderstand the past by falling into Antiquarianism, that is, by failing to grasp the significance of the past for the present.

In between these two extreme positions, various positions attempt to find a more sensible middle ground. Closer to positivism is the view that the history of philosophy needs to be disinterested, that is, it should refrain from any kind of value judgment or interpretation based on value judgments (Garber 1988). Closer to historicism is the position that the history of philosophy should not be conceived as a science at all, but rather, like all philosophy, as a process of edification. Accordingly, it is its current uses and meaning that matter, not what actually happened in the past (Rorty 1984). Closer to the middle, some historiographers argue that historians of philosophy need to engage in description, interpretation, and evaluation: Description, because their aim is to understand and account for the past; interpretation, because the understanding and account of the past requires interpretation; and evaluation, because a history of philosophy without evaluation has no use (Gracia 1992).

2. Philosophy vs. History of Philosophy

But what is the relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy? Are they compatible enterprises? And if compatible, how dependent are they on each other? The attempts to answer these questions are plagued with puzzles and difficulties (Powers 1986).

The positions adopted with respect to these questions generally follow those adopted in the previous one. On one side are those historians who draw a sharp distinction between the descriptive aim of the historian of philosophy and the interpretative and evaluative aims followed by the philosopher. According to them, philosophy and the history of philosophy are incompatible insofar as the philosopher seeks to establish truth in general, whereas the historian of philosophy is merely interested in historical truth, that is, in arriving at accurate descriptions of the philosophical past. The historian studies the history of philosophy in its own terms, not for the philosophical truth it may yield (Frede 1988).

On the other side are those who closely relate the task of description with those of interpretation and evaluation. For some, philosophy necessarily involves the study of its past, so it must be done historically (Cohen 1986); for others, studying the philosophical past requires doing philosophy (Kenny 1995, 1996); and for others still, the relation goes both ways (Taylor 1984). The reason, as given by philosophers with historicist leanings, is that philosophy is a rearticulation of a view about ourselves and the world, and this requires both the understanding of past articulations and a liberation from them. The study of the philosophical past, then, necessarily involves philosophical judgments, and philosophy must study its past to move beyond it; the history of philosophy must be done philosophically and philosophy must be done historically. Indeed, philosophy is a historical enterprise insofar as the thought or statement of a philosophical view is a historical event and thus part of the history of philosophy. So even contemporaneous philosophical discussions necessarily involve historical references and the understanding of the past, even if the history in question is recent (Popkin 1985).

These positions have been criticized in various ways. Some critics point out that they rely on an oversimplification of the issue (Janaway 1988; Alexander 1988), whereas others object that they fail to draw a distinction between objective and methodological necessity (Gracia 1992). Objective necessity holds between a discipline or study on the one hand and its object of study on the other. In this sense, the history of philosophy, considered as past philosophical views, is indeed necessary not just for the study of the history of philosophy but also for philosophy insofar as philosophy studies the world and all human experience of it and the history of philosophy is part of that object. Methodological necessity, however, holds between two studies or disciplines, insofar as there is a necessary dependence of the methods employed by them. This distinction opens the doors to an alternative position to the two mentioned. According to it, the study of the history of philosophy is not methodologically necessary for philosophy, although philosophy is methodologically necessary for the study of its history. One can philosophize without a historical aim or concern; but one cannot investigate the history of philosophy without a philosophical understanding of the concepts and arguments it contains. The relation of necessity between philosophy and its history, then, is not reciprocal.

3. Value

Regardless of the position one takes with respect to the relation between philosophy and the study of its history, one may still ask whether the second is useful or detrimental for the first. Those who argue that the study of the history of philosophy is incompatible with philosophy see only negative influences on it: the study of the history of philosophy stultifies creativity, prevents discoveries, is irrelevant to present concerns, and wastes precious time (Descartes 1970). And for those who hold that doing the history of philosophy is necessary for doing philosophy, the question of the value of the first for the second is obviously irrelevant. However, for those who maintain that the study of the history of philosophy is neither incompatible with nor necessary for doing philosophy, it is pertinent. Some of these believe that the study of the history of philosophy is harmful, whereas others argue that it is beneficial and thus justify it in various ways. At least eight different justifications are common. They can roughly be divided into three groups: rhetorical, pragmatic, and essentialistic.

Rhetorical justifications in turn fall into two groups. According to one, the history of philosophy provides a source of inspiration: past philosophers function as role models whose lives, devoted to the pursuit of truth, inspire us to emulate them (Rée 1978). According to another, the history of philosophy can be a source of support and respectability, and in that way be used to validate the present (Gilson 1955).

Pragmatic justifications can be classified into four types. One argues that the consideration and analysis of a rich historical treasure of philosophical views and arguments can supply present-day philosophers with a fertile ground in which to train for the philosophical task (Yolton 1986). Another proposes that the history of philosophy is a source of solutions to important philosophical problems insofar as many great minds from the past have presented answers to questions still pertinent today and offer us alternatives to contemporary proposals (Curley 1986). A third maintains that the present state of philosophy is one of confusion and "ill health," and the study of the past can help us figure out how and where philosophy went wrong; the study of the history of philosophy can be therapeutic for the present (Bennett 1988). The fourth group combines all three of these justifications, arguing that philosophy can profit from both the failures and successes of the past (Mash 1987).

Essentialistic justifications are cashed out in terms of the nature of philosophy and the way it develops. At least four versions of them have been proposed. One, not explicit among historiographers of philosophy, although applicable to philosophy and used in some sciences, argues that the ontogeny of a discipline recapitulates its phylogeny. The acquisition of philosophical knowledge by an individual person goes through stages that mirror those that the human race as a whole has experienced in its philosophical understanding. The study of the history of philosophy, then, provides a shortcut to the level of understanding that individual philosophers seek. Another argues that the dialectical nature of philosophy requires that we study its past. Regardless of whether this dialectical nature is taken to apply to the dialogue thought to be fundamental to the philosophical enterprise (Veatch 1988) or to a set of stages of development that repeat themselves (Hegel 1974), it appears essential that philosophy engage its past. In the first case, this is because the variety of the past makes it an ideal interlocutor; and, in the second, it is because any stage in the development of philosophy relies on prior stages. A third justification argues that the understanding and management of science and technology is possible only on the basis of historical experience and the history of philosophy supplies it (Krüger 1984). A fourth argues that philosophy is a cultural enterprise that relies on historical elements such as language, values, presuppositions, and so on; to understand the philosophical present, then, we need to go back to the past, for it is from the past that the present has arisen (Gracia 2000).

4. Texts

The object studied by historians of philosophy consists of the views of past philosophers, but they have no way of establishing direct contact with those views except through texts. Their access to Kant's philosophy, for example, is only through the texts that express Kant's views, whether they were composed by the author himself or by subsequent historians. The study of the history of philosophy amounts, then, to the study of texts, and this poses a set of questions that fall within what is frequently called hermeneutics. They may be divided roughly into four categories, depending on whether they have to do with texts themselves, their interpretation, their authors, or their audiences.

With respect to texts, the most pertinent questions concern their nature and identity. For purposes of the history of philosophy, the texts that matter most are written. Oral texts are relevant only insofar as they have survived either in written reports or have been taped. Historians who wish to give an account of William of Ockham's logic, then, begin by looking at copies of the pertinent texts from Ockham, say the Logica. But it turns out that the copies of the text they have are not the autograph Ockham wrote. Rather, they are reconstructions produced by editorial processes that took into account various manuscript versions of Ockham's text, and relied on the judgment of various editors as to the most historically accurate reading. This means that historians need to be aware of the distinction between the historical text—the one produced by Ockham—and the text they currently have, which may be called the contemporary text.

Even when historians have access to a philosopher's autograph, however, they may still ask themselves whether the script they have in front of them is the one intended by the author, for the philosopher may have written something he did not intend, or failed to write something he intended. So in addition to the historical text and the contemporary text, historians could take into account what they consider to be the intended text. But there is still more, for some historiographers argue that there is another text that is pertinent, namely the text the author should have written. Ockham may have written something that did not fit his view, because he was distracted or even failed to understand all the implications of his own position. Hence, in addition to the historical, contemporary, and intended, there is also what might be called the ideal text. These different ways of conceiving texts give rise to wide disagreement among historiographers concerning the kind of text that is most pertinent for the study of the history of philosophy.

Two questions in particular are pertinent concerning the interpretation of texts: "What is an interpretation?" and "What is its purpose?" According to a common conception, an interpretation of a text is the understanding that an interpreter has of the text; according to another, it is a text added to the text under interpretation. A example of the first sort is Thomas Aquinas's understanding of Aristotle's Metaphysics ; an example of the second is Aquinas's Commentary on Aristotle's "Metaphysics." The purpose of the interpretation may vary in each case, and this has also been a subject of disagreement, which most frequently occurs along two lines: understanding the meaning of the text or relating the text to something else. The first, in turn, can be broken down depending on various ways of conceiving the meaning of a text: in terms of the author's understanding or intention, in terms of the understanding of a particular audience, or independently of either the author or any audience. The second purpose of interpretations has been prompted in part by questions raised about the nature and viability of meaning by such Analytic philosophers as W. V. Quine and such Continental philosophers as Jacques Derrida. These questions have undermined meaning-based conceptions of interpretation and have led some historiographers to favor relational ones instead (Daniel 1993). If the purpose of an interpretation is relational, then the interpretation depends on what the text is related to, such as another text, particular historical events, certain conceptual frameworks used in the interpretation, and so on.

Those who make interpretations dependent on authors need to establish the identity of the latter, but this again is contested, for at least three authors need to be considered: historical, pseudohistorical, and contemporary (the terms used to refer to them vary). The first is the person who produced the historical text—the person who wrote Ockham's Logica for instance. The pseudohistorical author is the person whom later historians think wrote the text. The pseudohistorical author of the Logica, for example, goes by the same proper name as the historical author, but it could in fact be different. The contemporary author is the author of the contemporary text. Recall that the contemporary text is a reconstruction of the autograph carried out by editors on the basis of various texts and readings, so it is likely that it is different from the historical text and, therefore, it would be incorrect to regard the historical author as having sole responsibility for it.

The audience also has frequently been thought pertinent for the interpretation of texts. And here, again, various understandings of it may be considered. For some, authors themselves may be conceived as audiences, whereas others refer to the audiences intended by authors, the audiences contemporary with the composition of the historical text under interpretation, or the audiences contemporary with interpreters. Naturally, these differences in audiences alter the character of an audience-based interpretation. It is one thing to grasp Aristotle's own understanding of his Metaphysics and another to comprehend what thirteenth-century scholastics thought of it.

5. Approaches

Different views concerning the interpretation of texts generate different approaches to them. Several taxonomies of these have been proposed, but most of them include some of the following: ideological, sociological, biographical, scholarly, doxographic, apologetic, literary, idealistic, eschatological, dilettantish, and problematic. Ideological approaches use the history of philosophy for the justification of a chosen point of view and treat texts accordingly (Marxist historians). Sociological approaches break down into several, depending on whether they emphasize cultural (Gilson 1955), psychological (Kusch 2000), or generally contextual factors (Peckhaus 2000) in the study of the history of philosophy. Biographical approaches focus on personal histories (Rée 1978). Scholarly approaches seek to establish reliable texts, to produce accurate translations, to determine precise chronologies, and to reconstruct and expound the views of past authors and their relations without engaging in value judgments (Owens 1951). Doxography usually considers facts, figures, and ideas with a primarily informative aim (Diogenes 1925). Apologists see their goal as the defense of a particular author's point of view (John of St. Thomas 1931). The literary approach emphasizes form over content, stressing the need to take the former into consideration for the understanding of the latter (Danto 1985). Idealists consider the views they find in texts as imperfect renditions of what they think are perfect views, so they engage in speculative reconstruction (Russell 1937). Eschatologists view the history of philosophy as progressing toward some end, or as retreating from it (Aristotle 1984). Dilettantes focus on texts in isolation from historical contexts, being interested only in what they can find in them for their own philosophical purposes (Plantinga 1978). And those who adopt a problems approach look at the history of philosophy as a series of attempts to solve philosophical problems (Bennett). A recently proposed variant of the last is the framework approach. According to it, a proper historiographical method should make explicit the conceptual frameworks of problems and views used to study philosophical texts from the past in that such frameworks can be used to understand historical views better both in themselves and in relation to the views of the interpreters and their contexts (Gracia 1992).

A topic of occasional discussion in this context is the nature and value of what is frequently called the Principle of Charity. According to it, historians must attempt to develop the most favorable interpretations of the philosophical views they study. This applies whether the historians agree or disagree with them. If they agree, it is argued that this serves to support their own views, and if they disagree, that then they are presented with the best case against their own positions, forcing them to rethink those views or develop better arguments in their support.

6. Genres

The genres used in the history of philosophy break down into at least two large categories: textual commentaries and systematic expositions. The first includes more or less literal commentaries. The second breaks down into general or particular histories. General histories of philosophy aim to provide accounts of the whole history of philosophy. Particular histories are concerned with the philosophy of particular periods, regions, nations, ethne, races, and authors, or with specific problems or ideas, and with their comparison. Here are some examples of particular histories: history of medieval philosophy, history of Latin American philosophy, history of French philosophy, history of Hispanic philosophy, history of Black philosophy, Hegel's philosophy, Gustav Bergmann's position on individuation, history of the problem of universals (in general or in a particular period), and the history of the idea of substance. Historiographers disagree on the comparative value of these genres, but they continue to use them.

See also Aristotle; Bergmann, Gustav; Continental Philosophy; Derrida, Jacques; Descartes, René; Feminism and the History of Philosophy; History and Value Judgments; John of St. Thomas; Kant, Immanuel; Ockhamism; Quine, Willard Van Orman; Thomas Aquinas, St.; William of Ockham; Women in the History of Philosophy.

Bibliography

The bibliography lists only sources from the last twenty-five years, except for some classical and medieval sources and a few earlier well-known historical accounts. However, these sources contain references to earlier historiographical literature.

Alexander, Peter. "History of Philosophy: The Analytical Ideal II." Aristotelian Society 62 (1988): S191–S208.

Aristotle. Metaphysics. Bk. A. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes. Vol. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Ayers, Michael. "Analytical Philosophy and the History of Philosophy." In Philosophy and Its Past, edited by Jonathan Reé, Michael Ayers, and Adam Westoby. Hassocks, U.K.: Harvester Press, 1978.

Bennett, Jonathan. "Response to Garber and Rée." In Doing Philosophy Historically, edited by Peter H. Hare. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.

Cohen, Lesley. "Doing Philosophy Is Doing Its History." Synthese 67 (1986): 51–55.

Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1946.

Curley, Edwin. "Dialogues with the Dead." Synthese 67 (1986): 33–49.

Daniel, Steven. "Paramodern Strategies of Philosophical Historiography." Epoché 1 (1993): 42–61.

Danto, Arthur. Narration and Knowledge: Including the Integral Text of Analytical Philosophy of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Descartes, René. Descartes: Philosophical Letters, edited and translated by Anthony Kenny. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.

Diogenes Laertius. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. The Loeb Classical Library. London: W. Heinemann, 1925.

Frede, Michael. "The History of Philosophy as a Discipline." Journal of Philosophy 85 (11) (1988): 666–672.

Garber, Daniel. "Does History Have a Future? Some Reflections on Bennett and Doing Philosophy Historically." In Doing Philosophy Historically, edited by Peter H. Hare. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.

Gilson, Étienne. History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. New York: Random House, 1955.

Gracia, Jorge J. E. Philosophy and Its History: Issues in Philosophical Historiography. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.

Gracia, Jorge J. E. "Sociological Accounts and the History of Philosophy." In The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge, edited by Martin Kusch. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2000.

Graham, Gordon. "Can There Be a History of Philosophy?" History and Theory 21 (1982): 37–52.

Hare, Peter H., ed. Doing Philosophy Historically. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.

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Irwin, William, ed. The Death and Resurrection of the Author? Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Articles by Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Alexander Nehamas, Peter Lamarque, and others.

Janaway, Christopher. "History of Philosophy: The Analytical Ideal I." Aristotelian Society 62 (1988): S169–S189.

John of St. Thomas. Cursus theologicus. Tractatus de approbatione et auctoritate doctrinae d. Thomae. Disp. 2, vol. 1. Paris: Desclée, 1931.

Kenny, Anthony. "History of Philosophy: Historical and Rational Reconstruction." In Methods of Philosophy and the History of Philosophy: Proceedings of the Entretiens of Institute International de Philosophie. Helsinki, August 27–30, 1995. Acta Philosophica Fennica 61, edited by Simo Knuuttila and Ilkka Niiniluoto. Helsinki: Philosophical Society of Finland, 1996.

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. "Philosophy and Its Historiography." Journal of Philosophy 82 (11) (1985): 618–625.

Krüger, Lorenz. "Why Do We Study the History of Philosophy?" In Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, edited by Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Kusch, Martin. Psychologism: A Case Study in the Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge. London: Routledge, 1995.

Kusch, Martin. "The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge: A Case Study and a Defense." In The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge, edited by Martin Kusch. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2000.

Lafrance, Yvon. Méthode et exégèse en histoire de la philosophie. Montreal, Quebec: Les Éditions Bellarmin, 1983.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. "The Relationship of Philosophy to Its Past." In Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, edited by Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Mandelbaum, Maurice H. "The History of Philosophy: Some Methodological Issues." In Philosophy, History, and the Sciences: Selected Critical Essays. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.

Mash, Roy. "How Important for Philosophers is the History of Philosophy?" History and Theory 26 (3) (1987): 287–299.

Morgan, Michael. "The Goals and Methods of the History of Philosophy." Review of Metaphysics 40 (1987): 717–732.

Owens, Joseph. The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics: A Study in the Greek Background of Mediaeval Thought. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1951.

Piaia, Gregorio. "Brucker versus Rorty? On the 'Models' of the Historiography of Philosophy." British Journal for the History of Philosophy 9 (1) (2001): 69–81.

Peckhaus, Volker. "The Contextualism of Philosophy." In The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge, edited by Martin Kusch. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2000.

Peperzak, Adriaan T. "On the Unity of Systematic Philosophy and History of Philosophy." In History and Anti-History in Philosophy, edited by T. Z. Lavine and V. Tejera. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 1989.

Plantinga, Alvin. "The Boethian Compromise." American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978): 129–138.

Popkin, Richard H. "Philosophy and the History of Philosophy." Journal of Philosophy 82 (11) (1985): 625–632.

Powers, Lawrence H. "On Philosophy and Its History." Philosophical Studies 50 (1) (1986): 1–38.

Rée, Jonathan. "Philosophy and the History of Philosophy." In Philosophy and Its Past, edited by Jonathan Reé, Michael Ayers, and Adam Westoby. Hassocks, U.K.: Harvester Press, 1978.

Rorty, Richard. "The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres." In Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, edited by Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Russell, Bertrand. "Preface to the First Edition." In The Philosophy of Leibniz. 2nd ed. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1937.

Taylor, Charles. "Philosophy and Its History." In Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, edited by Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Veatch, Henry B. "Response to Commentators." In Doing Philosophy Historically, edited by Peter H. Hare. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.

Yolton, John W. "Is There a History of Philosophy? Some Difficulties and Suggestions." Synthese 67 (1) (1986): 3–21.

Jorge J. E. Gracia (2005)