The Historiography of Philosophy

with a Postface by Jonathan Barnes

Michael Frede author Katerina Ierodiakonou editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:13th Jan '22

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Historiography of Philosophy cover

The Historiography of Philosophy is the text, virtually unchanged, of the Nellie Wallace lectures, which Michael Frede gave in Oxford in 1989-90. In these lectures, Frede is largely concerned with how the history of philosophy has been studied and how it should be studied, that is, how we ought to conceive of and explain what historians of philosophy have been doing and should be doing. He distinguishes three systematical approaches to the history of philosophy, which run under the same heading 'history of philosophy' and deal with the same material, but they are distinct enterprises: Philosophical Doxography, Philosophical History of Philosophy, and Historical History of Philosophy. All three enterprises are considered by him as perfectly legitimate, but he clearly gives priority to the historical history of philosophy, since the other two ultimately have to rely on its findings; for it is only a historical discipline that can determine which position a philosopher of the past, as a matter of historical fact, took and for which reasons he did, in fact, take it. Frede starts his lectures by showing how the historical history of philosophy differs from the two philosophical studies of the history of philosophy; he then examines the historical discipline in more detail, and finally looks into the consequences of its practice. This volume also contains three previously published articles by Frede on the same topic, a preface by Katerina Ierodiakonou that places Frede's lectures in context, and a postface by Jonathan Barnes that discusses and criticizes Frede's views.

Frede's ideas, being so clear and so explicit, fruitfully call for a thorough discussion. * , Journal of the History of Philosophy 62.2 *

ISBN: 9780198840725

Dimensions: 222mm x 145mm x 20mm

Weight: 440g

258 pages