The history of philosophy as a hermeneutic and ontological project. Review of the Russian translation of the book “History of Greek Philosophy” by William Guthrie

Abstract

The article contains a review of the book “History of Greek Philosophy” by William Guthrie. It is argued that the true history of philosophy is the recreation of the ideas of the past in a modern context, their actualization by inscribing them as elements into a larger whole or by means of a hermeneutic dialogue aimed at obtaining truth. It is precisely an example of hermeneutic dialogue that Guthrie's work is. The third volume of Guthrie's six-volume study on the Sophists and Socrates was chosen as the main text under review. It is shown that Guthrie was able to actualize the relativistic concepts of the sophists and demonstrate their connection with the teachings and personality of Socrates, who, thanks to his concept of inductive search for definitions of concepts, became a key figure on the path of creating the classical philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle: theories of universal eidos and forms.