Lea Cantor: The Flawed Origin Story of 'Western Philosophy': Lessons for, and from, the History of Philosophy
While the concepts of ‘The West’ and ‘Western Civilization’ have been widely critiqued across the humanities for decades, the same attention has not been paid to ‘Western Philosophy’. This is a strange state of affairs. Philosophy underpins much of the debate about other aspects of the ‘West’, especially in relation to concerns about ‘Western ideas’ and ‘Western values’. Even in literature critical of the prevailing canon of ‘Western Philosophy’, such as some postcolonial and decolonial scholarship, the idea that ‘Western Philosophy’ tracks a continuous, centuries-old tradition tracing back to the ancient Greeks often remains unquestioned. My focus in this talk will be on the flawed origin story of ‘Western Philosophy’, which in general historiography still widely relies on a mythos-logos distinction to justify a ‘Greek beginning’ of philosophy. This account largely presents rationality as having emerged at a particular historical moment: the earliest Greek philosophers, the story goes, moved away from religion and mythology and discovered or even invented rationality, marking the birth of philosophy. This narrative may strike the specialist of ancient Greek philosophy as outdated and simplistic – if not obviously mistaken. The issue might even seem unworthy of serious scholarly attention. But that would underestimate vastly how the framework still widely informs contemporary (including specialist) scholarship in the history of philosophy. After reconstructing this origin story and showing its weaknesses, with reference especially to ancient and medieval philosophy, I briefly discuss broader challenges to the idea of a ‘Western Philosophy’, and reflect on the implications such critiques might have for the methodology of the history of philosophy.
John Marenbon: Philosophy, History of Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy
It is tempting to place ways of treating philosophy of the past on a spectrum, from the most 'philosophical' — where the aim is to contribute to contemporary philosophy — to the most 'historical', where the aim is to present ideas in the terms in which they would have been understood at the time. Some indeed (such as Bernard Williams) divide the spectrum in two: on side there are philosophers using historical texts; on the other, historians of ideas. I shall question not only this division, but the value of the spectrum itself.
Pierre Vesperini: Historia ancilla philosophiae? How to Write the History of Philosophy Historically
Since the 19th century history of philosophy has been a core issue in the construction of philosophy as an academic discipline. This means that very often, if not systematically, history was instrumentalized. I will talk here about my proposal to rebuild the rights - that is the autonomy - of history, drawing from my experience in the historiography of ancient philosophy.
James Warren: Aristotle's Interpretation of Anaxagoras in Metaphysics A.8
In Metaphysics A.8 Aristotle tries to show that Anaxagoras held a view that was more or less the same as the Platonists who came after him. Aristotle does this by interpreting what Anaxagoras himself failed properly to articulate and showing that Anaxagoras nevertheless must have meant to say something καινοπρεπεστέρως, whatever that means. I will point to the vocabulary of philosophical interpretation in this passage and explore what it tells us about Aristotle's approach to doing 'the history of philosophy', whatever that is.