What Are "Historiographies of Philosophy" Historiographies Of?

Problems of reconceptualizing the history of philosophy in a global perspective

Florian Scheidl

pp. 39-60

in: Yoko Arisaka, Anke Graness (eds), Histories of Philosophy in a Global Perspective, East Asian Journal of Philosophy 2 (1), 2022.

Abstract

This paper focuses on the obstacles to establishing a more global perspective in the historiography of philosophy and in academic philosophy as a whole. I argue that in order to reconceptualize its historiography, it is essential to reflect on the concept of philosophy itself and the related linguistic problems, and thus on the question of what can be included in a redefined historiography as “philosophy” in the first place. I attempt to take a middle position between Eurocentric mainstream arguments for an exclusively Western-oriented academic philosophy and approaches that seek to situate philosophy outside the West as well. In order to gain a sustainable understanding of the term “philosophy,” my paper proposes a twofold approach: first, a linguistic argumentation informed by ordinary language usage; and second, a historical argumentation based on intellectual history and the evolution of the term in the context of academic philosophy. I urge caution regarding the use of “philosophy” to refer to non-Western thought due to the potential anti-Eurocentric Eurocentrism of this attribution and argue for other approaches to reconceptualize the historiography of philosophy in a sustainable way.