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Some pursue philosophy via its history, while others focus on current debates without reference to the past. But a growing group of philosophers believe historical perspective can contribute to current debates.
Philosophy and the Historical Perspective explores the importance of this perspective and investigates the very nature of philosophy.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: Hans-Johann Glock: What Have the Historians Ever Done for Us?
- 2: John Marenbon: Why We Need a Real History of Philosophy
- 3: Thomas Grundmann: Progress and Historical Reflection in Philosophy
- 4: Marcel van Ackeren: Philosophy and the Historical Perspective: A New Debate on an Old Topic
- 5: Michael Della Rocca: Meaning, the History of Philosophy, and Analytical Philosophy: A Parmenidean Ascent
- 6: John Skorupski: Reason in History
- 7: Christof Rapp: The Liaison between Analytic and Ancient Philosophy and Its Consequences
- 8: Dominik Perler: The Alienation Effect in the Historiography of Philosophy
- 9: Christina van Dyke: What Has History to Do with Philosophy? Insights from the Medieval Contemplative Tradition
- 10: Robert Pippin: Hegel on the Political Significance of Collective Self-Deceit
- 11: Brian Leiter: The History of Philosophy Reveals that 'Great' Philosophy is disguised Moral Advocacy: A Nietzschean Case against the Socratic Canon in Philosophy
- 12: Martin Kusch: The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge Revisited: Relativism, Skepticism, Reductionism
- 13: Ursula Renz: On Philosophical Problems: Some Remarks on an Old Battlefield
- 14: Lisa Maria Herzog: History as an Interdisciplinary Dialogue - the Case of Philosophy and Economics
About the author
Marcel van Ackeren is a Gerda Henkel Fellow (2017-2019) at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and "Privatdozent" at the University of Cologne, Germany. He studied philosophy and social sciences at Glasgow University and obtained his diploma in Political Theory from the University of Duisburg in 1996. After two years as visiting researcher in Oxford (1996-8), he obtained a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Bochum (2000). He did research in Cambridge (2017) and Berne (2003-5). From 2007 on, he was assistant professor in Cologne, where he obtained his postdoctoral qualification ("Habilitation") in 2010. His current research focuses on methodology in philosophy, especially on the historical perspective, and on demandingness.
Summary
Does historical perspective contribute to today's philosophy? If so, what is the contribution of this perspective, and how does relating it to current philosophy bring this contribution about?
Since the rise of analytical philosophy, debates on historical perspective have intensified and widened in scope. In Philosophy and the Historical Perspective, these questions, and more, are answered via a range of philosophical strands, topics and debates. Based on the hope that philosophical debates could benefit from taking methodological and meta-philosophical questions into account, the volume concerns the historical perspective of current philosophical debates and as a result, the methods and nature of philosophy.
With contributions from leading experts, Philosophy and the Historical Perspective encompasses the history of philosophy, its sub-disciplines, and approaches and proposes that such questions deserve to be addressed in their own right, not just as an adjunct to other discussions.
Additional text
this volume contains contributions that genuinely move forward research on the foundations of methodology in the history of philosophy
