Abstract

I. While the history of philosophy seeks to investigate the relationships and consequences of various philosophical systems, the philosophy of the history of philosophy sets itself a higher goal: it searches for the meaning and direction of the development of these products of human thought. A pervasive telos is demanded as the dominant factor hidden in them, in spite of all their variations. But the question is immediately raised: Is such an assumption admissible? Does it not contain a wholly unprovable presupposition, since any effort to establish the direction of the history of philosophy must assume this teleology as a postulate?