Philosophy is mostly indexed by the names of philosophers, so they are more focused on creating recognizable brands than thinkers from other fields, and even refrain from revising their ideas, to remain recognizable. The best ideas are unrecognizable, because they are ubiquitous.
I don’t doubt any of that. Yet when rediscovering the primary sources later in life, I often found that the secondary interpretations that mapped them into distorted similes were wrong. I don’t presume to have a solution.
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This is the awkward truth of philosophy: that we keep rewriting its history from the perspective of the present, as we find new truths reflected in old writings. I don’t think there is a way to solve it per se, but I do think it’s possible to study what we’re doing here and why.
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For instance, I have a love/hate relationship with Kant scholarship, as I both appreciate the (de dicto) urge to keep alive careful readings of the text, and yet have a (de re) concern with showing how new logic, maths, and compsci allow us to better see what it is talking about.
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