ABSTRACT

Philosophy does not progress by way of consensus building, but it has progressed in a number of ways: first, by refining the questions we ask, and adding to them; second, by opening itself to a larger demographic; third, by moving away from a model of schools and enforced tutelage. If that is so, what reason is there to still read the history of philosophy? The answer is that the main kind of progress philosophy makes is extramural: over the decades and centuries, great philosophical ideas come to constitute everyone’s basic conceptual architecture. The history of philosophy is required for self-knowledge.