The Delineation of the History of Philosophy

Abstract

This chapter assesses the proper delineation of the object of the study of the historian of philosophy, which has always been a problem, however one conceived of this study and whatever conception of philosophy one may have had. It considers how the historian can know what belongs to his history and what does not without presuming to know, without taking a position on the philosophical question, what philosophy is. One reason why this is an enormous subject is that the history of philosophy is but one aspect of general history, a strand of developments within general history, in any case so closely intertwined with other developments in general history, or with the development of other social factors, that in order to have a complete understanding of the history of philosophy one will also have to take into account all these connections and dependencies. The chapter deals with this problem by distinguishing between an internal and an external history of philosophy. The internal history of philosophy will be the history of philosophy accounted for, as far as this is possible in terms of purely philosophical considerations, rather than by factors and developments outside philosophy.