IDEAS IN CONTEXT Edited by Richard Rorty, J.B. Schneewind and Quentin Skinner ‘The books in this series will discuss the emergence of intellectual traditions and of ‘elated new disciplines, The procedures, aims and vocabularies that were generated will be ser in the context of the alternatives available within the contemporary frameworks of ideas and institutions. Through detailed studies ofthe evolution of such traditions, and their modification by different audiences, it ishoped that 2 new picture will form of the development of ideas in their concrete contexts. By this ‘means, artificial distinctions between the history of philosophy, of the various sciences, of society and politics, and of literature, may be seen to dissolve ‘This is the first volume in the series, Forthcoming titles include: JG. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History David Lieberman, The Province of Legislation Determined Noe! Malcolm, Hobbes and Voluntarism ‘Quentin Skinner, Studies in Early Modern Intellectual History Edmund Leites (ed), Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modem Europe Lynn 8. Joy, Gassendi the Atomist: Advocate of History in an Age of Science Mark Goldie, The Tory Ideology: Poitce and Ideas im Restoration England ‘This series is published withthe support ofthe Exxon Education Foundation, PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY Essays on the historiography of philosophy EDITED BY RICHARD RORTY J.B. SCHNEEWIND QUENTIN SKINNER CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS @ 1984a ALASDAIR MAGINTYRE Maclnyre, Alasdair. 1977. ‘Epistemological crises, dramatic narrative and che philosophy of science’, The Monit 6o(4): 453-72 3 ‘Owen, G. EL. 1961. Tithenai ta Phtinomena' in 8. Mansion (ed). Arstote et les > ‘probiémes de methode. Proceedings of the second Symposium Aristorlieum. Louvain 4 The historiography of philosophy four genres RICHARD RORTY [Rational and historical reconstructions yee (at | | Analytic philosophers who have attempted ‘rational reconstruct the arguments of great dead philosophers have done so in the hope of rho B scan these philosophers as contemporaries, a colleagues wit ‘Geycaneachangesiews, Thay haveaqual faci oar oni | mightas well sua over the, they picture as mere doxographers. rather than seekers a ‘phical however, have led to charges of anachronism. | ea eee j uth. Such reconstructions, hia nalytic historians of philosophy are fr ‘ntdie ape of propstionycszeny bigdebedin thier Fis urged that we should not force Aristotle or Kant co take: jougnals, Tris urged that in current debates within philosophy of language or metaethies, There seems to be a dilemma: either we anachronistically impose enough of our problems and vo sand voebelmy ot the dead to make them conversational, parters, oF we confine our iat rity co making their falsehoods lok Tess ally By lang th ihe gue te -benighted simes in which they were written. “Those alternatives, however, do not constitute a dilemma. We should do both ofthese things, but do them separately. We should seat she bistary,of hilosophy as we treat the history of science. Inthe latter field, we have no jing that we know beuier chan our ancestors what they were 2 oe talking about. We do not think it anachronistic to say that Aristotle had a false model of the heavens, or that Galen did not understand how the circulatory system worked. We take.the pardonable ignorance of great dead scientists for granted..We should be equally willing zo Siy-that Aristotle was w ° nng-such things as real ‘Reaices, or Leibniz that God does not exist, or Descartes that the mind is, just the central nervous system sda i herpaive description We Resitate tierely Because we have colleagues who are themselves ignorant of such facts, and whom we courteously describe not as ‘ignorant’, but as Fb fay) | || “Under lo Merk j Pid ye ig dd Li | | PCeli ? 050 RICHARD RORTY ‘holding different philosophical views’. Historians of science have no colleagues who believe in crystalline spheres, or who doubt Harvey's account of circulation, and they are thus free from such constraints ‘There is nothing wrong with self-consciously letting our own philosophical views dictate terms in which to describe the dead. But there ae reasons for also describing them in other terms, their own terms. It is useful to recreate the intellectual scene in which the dead lived, in particular, the real and fag ee atch {Geir Contemporaries (or sear-contemporaties). There are purposes for whichitis useful know how people talked who did norkios! as muck ‘know. tt is in i ng asa ite cnimgain eet f sages The anthropologist Wane TO Know haw AEE fl llow-primitives as well as how they react to instruction from missionaries. For this purpose he tries to get inside their heads, and to think in terms which he would never dream of employing at home. Similarly, the historian of science, who can imagine what Aristotle might have said in a dialogue in heaven with Aristarchus and Prolemy, knows something interesting which remains unknown to the Whiggish astrophysicist who sees only how Aristotle would have been crushed by Galileo's arguments. There is knowledge ~ historical knowledge - to be gained which one can only. get by bracketing one's owa-better knowledge about, eg, the movements of the heavens or thc existence of God ‘The Pursuit OF auch historical knowledge must obcy 2 constraint formulated by Quentin Skinner: VA ‘No agent can eventually be said to have mea _never be brought to accept asa corect dese ‘Skinner 19692 Skinner says that this maxim excludes ‘the possibilty that an acceptable account of an agent’s behaviour could ever survive the demonstration that twas itself dependent on the use of criteria of description and classification not available to che agent himsel?. There is an important sense of ‘what the agent meant or did’, as of ‘account ofthe agent's behaviour’, for which this isan ineluctable constraint. If we want an account of Aristotle's or Locke's behaviour which obeys this constraint, however, we shall have to confine ‘ourselves to one which, atits ideal limit tells us what they might have said in response to all the criticisms or questions which would have been aimed at them by their contemporaries (or, more precisely, by that selection of their contemporaries or near-contemporarics whose criticisms and ques- tions they could have understood right off the bat — all the people who, roughly speaking, ‘spoke the same language’, not least because they were just as ignorant of what we now know as the great dead philosopher him- or done something which he ma) fon of what heat ment or done The historiography of philosophy: four genres ” self), We may want to go on to ask questions like “What would Aristotle have said about the moons of Jupiter (or about Quine’s ant-essentialism)?” ‘or What would Locke have said about labour unions (or about Rawls)?’ or sWhat would Berkeley have said about Ayer’s or Bennett’s attempt to “inguistify” his views on sense-perception and matter But we shall not describe the answers we envisage them giving to such questions as descriptions of what they ‘meant or did’, in Skinner's sense ofthese terms. The main reason se want historical knowledge.of what unce-educated _ primitives, or dead philosophers and scientists.-would have said to each __other is thas ithelps us in secagnize that thers havebeen different forms-af _ imellectual lifethan-urs. As Skinner (1969:52-3) rightly says, ‘the | indispensable value of studying the history of ideas’ is to learn “the | distinction beeween what necessity _ ar own contingent arrangements’. The latter is indeed, as he goes on to “say, ‘the key co self-awareness itself’. But_we also want to imagine conversations between ourselves (whose contingent itSinclude _ general agreement that, e.g., there are no real essences, no God, etc.) and. _ the mighty dead. We want this not simply because itis nise-1o feel one-up ‘on one’s betters, but because we would like to be able to. see the historyof ‘our race a8 a long conversational interchange, We want to be able to sex it «Bat Wayin onder to assure ourselves that therehas been al progressin the course of recorded history —that_we | grounds which our ancestors couk reassurance on this pointis as great as the need for self-awareness. Weneed “0 imagine Aristotle studying Galileo or Quine and changing his mind, Aquinas reading Newton or Hume and changing his, etc. We need to think. | chat, in philosophy as in science, the mighty mistaken dead look down from heaven at our recent successes, and are happy to find that their _ mistakes have been corrected, This means that we are interested not only in what the Aristotle who, |" walked the streets of Athens ‘could be’ brought to accept as a correct -description of what he had meant or done’ butin what an ideally reasonable ~ and educable Aristotle could be brought to accept as such a description, “} |The ideal aborigine can eventually be brought to accept a description ol “himself as having cooperated in the continuation of a kinship system designed to facilitate the unjust economic arrangements of his tribe. An ideal Gulag guard can eventually be brought to regard himself as having betrayed his loyalty to his fellow-Russians. An ideal Aristotle can be ‘brought to describe himself as having mistaken the preparatory taxonomic stages of biological research for the essence of all scientific inquiry. Each of these imaginary people, by the time he has been brought to accept such a new description of what he meant or did, has become ‘one of us’. Heis our