Editorial: How should we read the classics of philosophy?Marco SANTAMBROGIO†

It used to be assumed as a matter of course that people who were going to learnsome philosophy had to be steeped in the history of the subject. Whether ornot that assumption is still in place nowadays, it makes perfectly good senseto ask what are the reasons for it. Indeed, it makes philosophical sense. Sup-pose convincing reasons exist for concluding that, yes, the history of philoso-phy is an essential part of a good philosophical training. Then the further ques-tion arises of how the classics are to be read. Paul Grice used to say that we“should treat great and dead philosophers as we treat great and living philoso-phers, as having something to say to us”. What exactly does that mean? Note,incidentally, that the answer matters a great deal to those of us who have teach-ing duties. It also matters to those, like myself, who are rather sceptical thatany clear divide can be drawn between the so-called continental and analytictraditions in philosophy, because the attitude towards history does seem tomark a clear difference.

It might be useful, in order to get a better grip on what is involved here, tocontrast the quite different ways in which we tend to read the classics of liter-ature and those of science. We can think of no substitute to reading the for-mer, possibly in their original language but in any case unabridged, not just forthose who intend to learn how to become a writer, but for anyone who is inter-ested in knowing what literature is all about. Only historians of science, to thecontrary, are interested in reading the original writings of the scientists of thepast. For most professional scientists, whatever sediment of their theories isleft in contemporary textbooks is quite sufficient. Occasionally, a scientistrevives and develops some idea which can be found in the writings of somegreat and dead scientists and was set aside by the progress of their discipline.Abraham Robinson’s revamping of infinitesimals by means of non-standard

Dialectica Vol. 57, No 3 (2003), pp. 257-259

† University of Parma (Italy), Email: marcosan@unipr.it

258 Marco Santambrogio

analysis is a case in point. But it remains to be seen if the inspiration camefrom reading the masters of the past or was reached independently. Anyhow,such cases are too rare to recommend the history of science as a likely sourceof brilliant ideas insufficiently explored.

Where does philosophy stand? Of course I shall not attempt an answer here.As a contribution to clarifying what is at stake, let me only mention two points.First, it seems to be a good idea, before tackling the main issue, to find an answerto the following question: are the problems raised by the great and dead philoso-phers the same as (or recognizably similar to) ours or are they invariably so tiedto the peculiar perspectives of their times, to the local interests and practices oftheir culture, that the solutions they countenanced are at best only remotely rel-evant to our own philosophical problems, which are similarly tied to our owntime? Opinions diverge here. Claiming that no general answer is to be had andeach case has to be examined on its own, is already to take a long step away fromhistoricism, which amounts to eagerly embracing the second horn.

Second, an interesting line of thought supporting the view that history can-not be ignored in doing philosophy has recently been put forward by BernardWilliams. Williams claims that not just in the realm of ethics and political phi-losophy, but also with respect to such notions as truthfulness, the kind ofunderstanding we can reach by means of analysis and by deploying argumentswhich try to justify present day ideas (e.g., of equality and equal rights) andwhat we take to be virtues (e.g., of authenticity, of integrity) must “come to anend” long before we can so much as hope to be able to win an argument againstopponents with a sufficiently different cultural background, such as represen-tatives of the ancient régime who might value ideas of hierarchy more thanthose of equality. If this is so – if, that is, conceptual analysis and a prioriarguments are not self-sufficient – then the interest of the humanistic enter-prise of making sense of ourselves and of our activities (which is what phi-losophy is all about, according to Williams) is best served by examining howour ideas and values came to be ours. And this is something only history cando by telling the story of how we were contingently made together with theoutlook which is part and parcel of our identity. Only history can tell us “howthese concepts [of equality and equal rights, as opposed to ideas of hierarchy]rather than the others came to be ours: a story […] of how the modern worldand its special expectations came to replace the ancient regime”.1 Clearly,some measure of relativism is implicit in Williams’ view, e.g., in his taking forgranted that “we” cannot win an argument against a representative of theancient régime about equality and hierarchy. (This seems to be debatable. It

1 B.Williams, “Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline”, Philosophy, 75: 484.

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can easily be conceded that entirely a priori arguments will be ineffective. Butis it so obvious that empirical discoveries, e.g., that the blood of any humanbeing is the same shade of red as any other, will carry no weight?).

However, this line of thought can amount by itself to a vindication of phi-losophy’s special engagement with history, particularly with its own history,only if the kind of understanding we reach by tracing the history of our ideasis the same as, or sufficiently similar to, what we glean from conceptual analy-sis and rational arguments (not exclusively a priori). If, on the contrary, thetwo kinds of understanding are distinct and unrelated, as I suspect they are,then the usefulness of the history of philosophy for philosophy will depend onwhether philosophy is taken to be primarily interested in one or in the other.Because, suppose we agree with Thomas Nagel (a staunch opponent of rela-tivism and subjectivism of every stripe) that “to reason is to think systemati-cally in ways anyone looking over my shoulder ought to be able to recognizeas correct”.2 Then clearly an awareness that our concepts and explanations arerooted in our local practices, our culture, and our history, will be irrelevant tothe recognition of their correctness and therefore to philosophical under-standing, conceived of as being mainly interested in the reasons for and againstany given claim. The last word, with respect to the correctness of any thought,“belongs to the content of the thought itself rather to anything that can be saidabout it. No further comments on its origin or psychological character can inany way qualify it”.3

At this point, someone might perhaps, in a conciliatory tone of voice, putforward the idea that, much as the human condition itself, philosophy is veryvarious, and so there can be no unique way of reading the great and deadphilosophers as having something to say to us. It all depends on who we are –i.e., what kind of philosophers. Within the large province of philosophy, onlysome are trying to make sense of our life, and particularly of our intellectualactivities, by examining the correctness of our thoughts. Others tread differ-ent paths. But this suggestion is not quite to my taste, for it seems to me thatthe genealogical sort of understanding is so different from what is provided byanalysis and rational arguments that there is not much point in calling themboth ‘philosophical’.

REFERENCES

Bernard WILLIAMS, (2000), “Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline”, Philosophy, 75: 477-496.Bernard WILLIAMS, (2002), Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton Univer-

sity PressThomas Nagel, (1997), The Last Word, Oxford University Press

2 T. Nagel, The Last Word, p. 5.3 Ibid., p. 65.