Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy

Book excerpt: How, then, can substantial history of philosophy find a place in analytic philosophy? If history of philosophy includes the respectful, intelligent use of writings from the past to address problems that are being debated in the current philosophical journals, then history of philosophy may well belong to analytic philosophy. But if history of philosophy is more than this; if it is concerned with interpreting and reinterpreting a certain canon, or perhaps making a case for extending this canon, its connection with analytic philosophy is less clear. More obscure still is the connection between analytic philosophy and a kind of history of philosophy that is unapologetically antiquarian. This is the kind of history of philosophy that emphasises the status of a philosophical text as one document among others from a faraway intellectual world, and that tries to acquaint us with that world in order to produce understanding of the document.