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Publication Details

Internal History of Philosophy

(Original title: Internal History of Philosophy)
Filozofia, 78 (2023), 10, 848 - 864.
Type of work: Original Articles
Publication language: English
Abstract
I defend an internal history of philosophy that prioritizes philosophical reasons over cultural factors. This approach contrasts with a broadly contextualist endeavor invoking cultural factors without clear ground. I argue that the latter path is either too permissive or leads to aiming at a complete historical account. Neither way is acceptable: the former obliterates the correctness of interpretation; the latter dissolves history of philosophy in general history and is practically impossible. Instead, the internal history I propose – based primarily on Michael Frede’s and Maurice Mandelbaum’s historiography – prioritizes philosophical reasoning and appeals to external contextual factors in a principled way when it is necessary to supplement philosophical considerations.
Keywords

Contextualist history of philosophy, Internal history of philosophy, Historiography, Michael Frede

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