Abstract

The current academic discipline of philosophy frequently emphasizes historical aspects of philosophy. Many writers claim that the history of philosophy is indispensable to philosophy. Of the three sorts of reasons for this indispensability - pragmatic, homely, and farfetched - only the third sort holds up. Even the homely reasons point only to the usefulness of the study of the history of philosophy to the practice of philosophy, not its indispensability. The main pragmatic reason for studying the history of philosophy is that most philosophical scholars are also studying it. This is not an enduring reason. The chief farfetched reason for studying philosophy historically involves seeing the philosophical activity as one possessing the characteristics of a self on which psychoanalysis can operate. Thus history serves to summon up "repressed" events in philosophy's past. The analogy here is strained and the goal obscure. Homely reasons are that history provides contemporary philosophers with role models and inspiration, as well as warnings of the pitfalls of trains of thought. The history of philosophy is not unimportant for philosophy, just overemphasized. The implications of this conclusion for the academic practice and teaching of philosophy is substantial