Abstract

Summary This article analyzes the possibility of cooperation between philosophy and the history of philosophy. It approaches this task more precisely than has been the case in the discussion heretofore, seeing in this relationship an ideal case, typifying the relationship of systematic to historical disciplines in general. To begin with, a distinction must be made between a naively received history of philosophy and the critical study of philosophy's history. Further distinctions to be made are among receivedcontent, receptionprocesses and the five main categories of the history of philosophy'sfunctions for systematic philosophy (primary information, hermeneutics, heuristics, genetic reflexion and validity tests). Heuristics and validation may be subsumed under the category ofintegration and be brought into relation to the truth criteria of coherence and consensus. The hermeneutical and reflective functions may be understood as proto-heuristics and proto-validation and thereby receive secondorder functionalization