I’ve been thinking about Lewis Powell’s helpful and thought-provoking post on The Ladder of Historicity. My thoughts seemed a bit too unwieldy for a comment, so I thought I would share them as a separate post.
Lewis’ ladder imagery suggests, perhaps unintentionally, a single axis along which we could situate various manners of doing the history of philosophy. On one end, there is historical contextualization. On the other, philosophical inspiration. In between, there are various combinations of historical and philosophical work. (I think these are what the two most distant rungs represent, although to call the one end “history” might be to suggest that it is not philosophy, which Lewis might not have intended, just as “philosophical inspiration” might still be recognizable as history.)
When I think about these matters, and when I discuss them with my students, I try to suggest a variety of axes along which we could consider how various authors approach the history of philosophy. I’m teaching a Hume seminar this semester, so we are discussing, for instance, interpreting the Treatise in light of the Enquiry or not, and whether we need to read Locke or Bayle or Malebranche or Clarke or Baxter or Reid to understand what Hume is doing.
As I try to think about these matters in a general way, here are some of the various continua along which I place various authors (or more often, articles, books, or sections of each). I should note that although I occasionally find myself having strong opinions about which end of each spectrum historians of philosophy should fall on, in most moods I am a pluralist who values writing that falls at different points along each axis.
- philosophy as done at the time vs. illuminates current philosophical debates
Some historians of philosophy (HOPs) don’t feel that an argument is complete without showing how their work illuminates a current debate or opens a new space in the contemporary literature. The other end doesn’t assume that their work doesn’t have contemporary interest or reject the need for it, but it doesn’t play a major role in their choices of what to read, what to think about, or what to write about. (Indeed, if only one person is interested in the topic it still shows that there is contemporary interest, just a very limited one.)
- historical context fixes meaning or illuminates the text vs. face value
Some HOPs seek out textual, historical, or etymological information, working on the assumption that doing so should help us understand the text. Others are more content to let the text talk to us across the ages. (Or perhaps they just prefer others to do that work.)
- discover author’s intentions vs. go with what he or she said
Some HOPs work carefully through biographical information or non-published sources such as letters to get inside the author’s mind and figure out what he or she intended. Others tend to work with what’s on the page alone. (Perhaps this should be separated out? Non-published/published on one axis, and intentional/nonintentional readings on the other?)
- specifiers vs. totalizers
Some HOPs prefer to work through a particular text in isolation from other things an author wrote, waiting until quite late in their work to see how the specific passage relates to other things written by the author. Others prefer a total view (the “X’s view is” approach), drawing from many places.
- developmental views vs. stasis views
Some HOPs emphasize the way an author’s views change over time, while others tend to treat the author’s views as a consistent whole. This could take the form of gradual changes (perhaps changes in editions of Locke’s Essay) or sharp breaks (early atomist versus late idealist Leibniz, for instance).
- eternal debates vs. the questions and problems are not the same
Some HOPs think that the questions being asked by philosophers in the 17th or 5th century (about free will, say) are the same as those we are asking now. Others deny this. Those who deny this might prefer an earlier formulation of the problem (like Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy”) or they might not.
- grand narratives vs. no narratives
Some HOPs like to tell a single story uniting many different authors (think: grand Hegelian stories or rationalism/empiricism, but also more specific ones like Yolton’s Thinking Matter). Others think such narratives distract from a careful reading of the texts or gloss over important differences.
- isolated reading vs. overall consistency
Some HOPs prefer to interpret a passage using the most plausible reading where making the disputed passage consistent with other texts has low importance, while others place a high importance on working across many texts. (Leibniz studies almost have to take this latter approach, given the brevity of his many, mostly unpublished, writings.)
Obviously, these various axes interrelate, although I think that the ways in which they interrelate are perhaps not as obvious as they first appear. For instance, Thomas Holden’s The Architecture of Matter is a model of careful, historical, contextual work, but he ends with a section on how the actual parts doctrine informs the current debate on gunk. That might surprise someone who assumed that “historical context illuminates the text” is not likely to be found with “illuminates the current debate.”
These are all still a work in progress, and I’m not completely happy with how I’ve stated them. (When I decided to write this post, I thought there would be only three spectra, which could be nicely plotted along X, Y, and Z axes. Clearly that didn’t happen.) They are also nowhere near exhaustive (but perhaps a bit exhausting). Feel free to share thoughts or better formulations or other differences that matter to you but that I missed.
Postscript: I also want to note that in addition to the introductions in the excellent books by Sleigh, Adams, Garrett, Bennett, and others, in which they lay out some of their principles for doing the history of philosophy, the Journal of the History of Philosophy has been publishing previous editors’ thoughts on the journal and on the state of history of philosophy. Richard A. Watson’s piece is most relevant to the topics here.
Update: I keep thinking of additional relevant issues: does one read outside of philosophy (in theology, literature, law, etc.)? does one take plausibility into account (or what constitutes plausibility)? what does “a principle of charity” mean and how should it be applied? should we provide reconstructions of an author’s views that go beyond the available evidence?
Thanks for this, Tim; it is interesting stuff. A question and a comment:
First, do you see these as principled matters? That is, do you think that one ought to have a principled reason for placing oneself in a certain position on some of these axes? I suspect that my work floats around across all of these axes (and Lewis’s rungs) depending on what I believe will best illuminate the texts I’m working on. Sometimes that means doing some historical contextualization or etymological work, but other times it means putting the thinker into conversation with present-day philosophical issues. So I guess I see these more as a series of tools available to historians of philosophy, rather than a taxonomy of principled methodologies.
And a comment: Yitzhak Melamed has a forthcoming essay against charitable interpretation as used by many historians of philosophy. It seems relevant to what you discuss here. It’s here: http://philpapers.org/rec/MELCIA-2
Eugene,
I think we ought to be reflective about what we do and why. This might mean adopting certain methodological principles, but perhaps it need not do so. I too slide along the axes at various times. Even when I find myself working on a very “specifying” paper, I might need to refer to another author’s views with a great deal less subtlety than a specifier would normally want. And even in those times when I am very resistant to the grand narratives, I still sometimes rely on them in my teaching. I’m not sure that any of my “principled” positions are so firm or so set that I don’t find myself abandoning them when the task calls for it. Hence, my preference for “reflective” rather than “principled.” But I do think that through reflecting on my own preferences and on the works I most admire, I now loosely hold some principles that are probably in tension with the methodological pluralism I also advocate.
I look forward to reading Yitzhak’s pice on methodology. I recently came across his article on Spinoza that discusses Michael Della Rocca’s interpretation, and their somewhat different approaches were on my mind as I drafted this.
Here, in two installments, is my take on these matters, as expressed in the Prologue to my edited collection *Hume on Is and Ought*. I guess I see myself primarily as a philosopher who tries to learn from the past (and to learn by arguing) rather than as a historian of philosophy, though if you are going to learn, you need to take the trouble to understand. And of course I *sometimes* get interested in historical questions that are of not of much import to contemporary philosophy. For example I may get interested in the validity of an argument whose premises I believe to be radically false. On the whole though, I am interested in solving philosophical problems via a dialogue with the great dead. If they did not have something intelligent to say about the issues that interest me I would let them slumber undisturbed. .
We come to Hume to argue, not to praise him
For Hume’s philosophy lives after him
And since it’s not interrèd with his bones
Like dead men’s thought that lives, it lives because
We think that it contains important truths
(Truths that illuminate the nature of
Morality, the mind and reason too,
The ‘sentiments’ that make us do our duty,
The role of passion and the sense of beauty);
Or think that Hume is wrong, but that his faults
Are kissing cousins to important truths
(So, loving truth, we love the truths they’re like);
Or think him wrong, but think that when he errs
They’re mighty errors, great and grand mistakes,
That represent temptations of the mind
Which must be wrestled with and overcome
That we may learn to see these things aright.
But if we seek to learn from David Hume,
We cannot hope to learn without debate,
His ideas must be tested in the fire
Of criticism if we are to find
The philosophic gold that lies within.
For philosophic truth is our concern
Above all else; less so, historic facts
About a thinker’s thought, however great.
For though we seek to know great David’s mind,
We want to know what David thought so we
Can find if we agree or disagree
Or better still, if David’s wrong or right!.
But right or wrong, we hope that Hume repays
The homage that we pay – attention first,
(‘What does he say? What does he mean by it?
What was the context of that barbed remark?
Who were his targets? And who influenced him?
What larger ends did David have in view
When arguing for this doctrine or for that?
And what about conceptions that were shared
By Hume himself and his contemporaries,
But are no longer so well-known to us?’)
Next comes analysis (‘Exactly how
Is this specific inference meant to work?
Does Hume appeal to missing premises,
Obvious to him but not so much to us?’)
Next comes critique (‘Well then, is David right?
Does this conclusion follow from that claim?
And what about these claims – are they all true?’)
Sometimes that’s it, since Hume, it seems, is right,
(‘So, Hume’s correct and reason’s passion’s slave!”)
Sometimes amendment follows (‘It is clear,
That in this case the argument is lame,
But nonetheless another argument
Can be constructed which would prove the point
From something like great David’s premises.
“No Ought From Is” – amended – we can prove,
Employing logic quite unknown to Hume,
So he’s not right, but yet not wholly wrong.’)
Sometimes what follows is an inference:
(‘It seems that in this instance Hume’s correct –
At least if he’s corrected he’s correct –
But what then follows, what does this suggest
About the status of our moral claims?’)
Sometimes amendment seems impossible
But still we learn by seeing why that’s so
(‘So David’s wrong – the argument’s a dud,
And rational reconstruction is in vain,
But if he’s wrong and can’t be put to rights
Still, Hume’s missteps can lead us to the light,
For from his errors we can lessons take –
THIS is what we’ve learned from his mistake …’)
History is a necromantic art
At least when hist’ry serves philosophy;
We aim to resurrect the mighty dead,
To grapple with their thought and thus to learn,
Contesting boldly their contentious claims,
Whether to lose the contest or to win.
No Faustus we, whose Mephistopheles
Could only summon silent ghosts, for we
Must needs have ghosts that speak, since it’s their thoughts
That interest us. We need no Helen dumb
To make us all immortal with a kiss –
Immortal thoughts suffice, but since those thoughts
Still live, although the thinker is long dead,
Because they live, they move, migrate and change
Thus undergoing metamorphosis.
The thoughts which have an influence on men’s minds
(And women’s too – let’s not be sexist here!)
Allegedly from some philosopher
May not be quite the thoughts that stirred his brain.
Thus ‘Humean’ doctrines, ‘Humean’ arguments,
That dominate the philosophic scene,
Are sometimes not the thoughts of David Hume –
That does not mean they should not be discussed,
For thoughts, mutating, may perhaps become
More like the truth, or if mistaken still,
More like the happy errors from the which
We learn the most by thinking why they’re wrong.
‘No-Ought-From-Is’ in Hume’s sense may be false
But in some other sense may yet be true
As keen philosophers, we’d like to know!
Are moral judgments meant to be truth-apt,
The sorts of things that can be true or false?
So David thought (or so I think he thought)
But that is not the view of many now
Who think Hume’s arguments prove otherwise.
If arguments derived from David Hume
Can prove what Hume perhaps did not believe,
That may still be a matter of some pith
And moment that deserves to be discussed.
Ideas, mutating, sometimes are improved
And even if the change is for the worse
May still acquire a major influence,
And consequently merit some debate.
This is a book addressed to ‘Humean’ themes;
Sometimes they’re themes direct from David’s brain,
HIS arguments or theses HE advanced;
Sometimes they’re themes derived from David’s thought –
Arguments BASED ON arguments of his,
Theses QUITE LIKE the theses he advanced,
Sometimes they’re CONSEQUENCES of his thought,
Deductions he may not have followed through;
Sometimes we can’t be sure, when David’s texts
Bear two interpretations (if not more!)
And we cannot be certain which he meant;
But whether they’re his thoughts unmodified
Or thoughts derived at some removes from his
They’re thoughts which dominate today’s debates.
The’re few philosophers are cited more,
There’s scarce a learned paper, scarce a book
On ethics, meta-ethics, ‘is’ and ‘ought’
On fact and value and the yawning gap
That some suppose divides the two domains –
There’s seldom such an article, I say,
That does not doff its hat to David Hume.
But there’s another late philosopher
Who looms almost as large in these debates
As Hume himself. For David Hume denied
(At least he’s widely thought to have denied)
That ‘ought’ from ‘is’ can soundly be derived.
Some seem to think he did much more than this
And PROVED No-Ought-From-Is (now dubbed ‘Hume’s Law’)
Or gave good reason to suppose it true,
Since logic will not let us overleap
The inference barrier splitting ‘is’ from ‘ought’.
But Arthur Prior, it seems, proved otherwise
He did what Hume had doubted could be done
By LOGICALLY deriving several ‘oughts’,
From ‘ought’-free premises. And here I stress
Prior sought no aid from ‘analytic truths’
(Real or supposed) to ground his arguments
But staked his claim on logic’s power alone
To bridge the gap dividing ‘ought’ from ‘is’.
But valid as his inferences are,
There’s something fishy, something not quite right
About the ‘ought’-conclusions Prior derives
(Though what that something is remains obscure).
This gives us hope that Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is
Can be restored and maybe even proved –
But there’s no hope for Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is
UNLESS reformulated, for it seems
An unamended version of ‘Hume’s Law’
Cannot survive the bite of Prior’s critique.
Hence the attempts by Pigden, Gerhard Schurz,
Restall and Russell, likewise Edwin Mares,
All seeking to reformulate Hume’s Law
And prove the different ‘laws’ they have devised,
Deducing different consequences from
Their different versions of No-Ought-From-Is.
Thus most (not all) of our contributors
Endeavour in their diverse ways to prove
That Hume’s still right though Prior proved him wrong.
O Hume, great David, thou art mighty yet!
Thy spirit walks abroad; thy thoughts survive
They live more now than when thou wast alive!
Charles,
Thank you for your eloquent and illuminating response. And I see no reason not to call someone “who tries to learn from the past (and to learn by arguing)” and thinks that “if you are going to learn, you need to take the trouble to understand” a historian of philosophy, although I also take your point that this is sometimes not what we mean by a historian of philosophy. I tend to have a rather “big tent” view in this regard.
I also agree that we should be driven by questions that interest us, although I think that the fact that I am interested in some philosophical problem that is not of interest to anyone else alive now is enough to qualify as of interest to “contemporary philosophy.” After all, I’m contemporary! And I am interested in philosophical questions at least as much for my own puzzles as for those puzzles more frequently represented in the current literature.
[…] here about teaching modern philosophy. Lewis has posted on this topic several times, as has Tim Yenter. The discussions in the comments on each of these four posts are also really lively and […]