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here are two reasons for this difference between, on the one hand, the
history of philosophy and, on the other
hand, the history of science or the
history of ideas. One is the level of
immersion in, engagement with, and
evaluation of the ideas that characterizes the history of philosophy. They
are treated philosophically, not as historical curiosities to be assigned to an
intellectual museum, or epiphenomena to be set in their socio-economic
context. The other is that while there
is evolution and some progress in philosophy, past philosophies are not
rendered redundant by subsequent
ones. Some assertions put forward by
philosophers in the past may have
turned out to be empirically falsified.
But in that case they were not philosophical assertions but empirical ones.
During the last century there
was a shift among metaphysicians
away from idealism towards realism
(and among philosophers of mind
from dualism towards physicalism).
But that was not because idealism (or
dualism) was refuted. The spotlight
shifted towards this new terrain because of a growing awareness of different, neglected territory waiting to
be explored. But an exclusive focus
on this new territory leads to the older
approaches and paradigms remaining
in the dark and their potential insights
being unavailable. Thus philosophers
would do well to remind themselves
of the history of their discipline in
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