History of Philosophy in Philosophy Today; and the Case of the Sensible Qualities

Abstract

R recent decades have seen a tremendous outpouring of books and papers on figures and topics in the history of western philosophy. This remarkable scholarly production has accompanied, and has been reinforced by, a wide range of important editorial and translation projects, and the promotion of forums for oral exchange, including ad hoc conferences of every sort and size, and societies devoted to the ongoing study of the philosophies of individuals, periods, or ideological traditions. At one time-not that long ago-English-speaking philosophers interested in historical topics often talked mainly to each other. (Or at least those interested in certain particular periods-notably the early modern-did. I can't speak for work on, say, ancient Greek philosophy; but I suspect the point holds even in this case, if to a lesser degree.) Part of the reason for this isolationism was, simply, linguistic. American scholars, in particular, were often ill-equipped to deal even with original language texts (unless these happened fortunately to be in English), let alone with substantial volumes of secondary literature in French, German, or other continental European languages. Another part of the reason, however, was more ideological: we sometimes assumed that our investigations into historical subjects were motivated by concerns, whereas they-French and German writers in particular, both past and present-were engaged mainly if not entirely in exegetical work. (Or, if they did approach historical figures from the perspective of present-day philosophical interests, the interests in question (it was assumed) were likely to be of a nature alien to us-or at least to those of us trained in analytically oriented graduate philosophy programs.) To a large extent this isolationism is a thing of the past. It is more and more taken for granted that anyone wanting to make a significant contribution to the study of historical figures simply must be able to work with original language texts, and at least ought to have