Philosophy and the tide of history
Bertrand Russell's role in the rise of analytic philosophy
pp. 39-59
in: Erich Reck (ed), The historical turn in analytic philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
The remarks I have chosen as an epigraph to this chapter encapsulate, neatly though perhaps inadvertently, a striking view of philosophy's relation to its own history: that writing the history of philosophy involves time off from philosophy itself. Through examination of an intertwined set of examples, an examination which gives us a new perspective on those examples, I shall try to display the indefensibility of this view, and show that lack of attention to our own history leads us into bad philosophy, characterized by complacency and hubris, generating misguided projects, false assumptions, and the overlooking of serious alternatives.
