ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one assumption that seems to be pervasive in the history of analytical philosophy to call the traditionalist conjecture and explain why it needs to be reconsidered. It argues that the traditionalist conjecture short-circuits attempts to account for the diversity and richness of analytical philosophy in a suitably inclusive way. The narrow scope of historical investigations in analytical philosophy coincides with the fact that the attention remains predominantly focused on authors and problems associated with the foundations of mathematics and the sciences, mathematical and philosophical logic, as well as the study of language. Philosophical history, that is, the philosophical study of past philosophies is distinct from other similar types of endeavors such as sociology of knowledge, intellectual history, and history of science. The task of historians of analytical philosophy is often described, broadly, as consisting in reconstructing one or more aspects of the analytical tradition.
