ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates different conception of the use of history in philosophy that complements the conception Jonathan Bennett offers. Bennett's interest is clear: it is finding philosophical truth and avoiding philosophical falsehood that he is after, and the study of Spinoza is supposed to help us in this search. Bennett's Spinoza often makes mistakes, and bad ones; hardly an argument in the Ethics can stand without some correction. Bennett's position has the danger of distorting the history of philosophy. Bennett would agree that few historical figures have any large store of doctrines or arguments that philosophers would consider live candidates for truth or even approximate truth. Descartes has suggested a philosophical use for the history of philosophy different from the one Bennett suggests; the suggestion is that the history of philosophy can be important not because it leads to philosophical truths, but because it leads to philosophical questions.
