Last night I attended a Plato & Aristotle class where we discussed (on a tangent) the apparent disregard of historical (read “ancient”) philosophy in contemporary consideration of philosophical problems.
This seems to me to be a rather striking phenomenon given that the early writers provide a refreshing analysis of legitimate problems that are highly appealing over and opposed to current submissions.
An excellent example of this is my response to D in the “Philosophy Is Dead” thread, where I argued that there are several areas of Philosophy yet to be ‘exploded’ and that much of historical philosophy has much to say on the subject. Yet, interestingly, no one has responded to my submissions, but rather have gone off debating rather modern approaches to the problem.
Now this is neither to (i) whine about other users ignoring my submissions or (ii) argue that contemporary philosophy is not at all illuminating, but rather to try to provoke an answer as to why so much historical philosophy (Greek, Medieval, Islamic, et cetera) goes unconsidered when they are of particularly high relevance.
TdB - “RE: Philosophy Is Dead”
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=138811
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:13 pm