This is the introductionary talk to the Workshop "Comparative History of Philosophy", held at the University of Milano on June 9, 2017. I present Giulio Preti's view about historiography of philosophy, with a focus on two major themes: continuity versus discontinuity in history of philosophy and autonomy versus eteronomy of philosophy.

Since its inception in 1975, the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici has devoted a special attention to scholarly research in Ancient Philosophy. This short book is meant to offer an overview of the events and the publications in which this particular interest reverberated through more than three decades. The present overview is prefaced by two essays: the first was authored in the Nineties by the late Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, the distinguished ancient historian who was fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei and Director of the Istituto until his death in February 2010; the second, dating back to the same period, is written by the late Marcello Gigante, the Greek philologist renowned for enhancing research on the Herculaneum Papyri.

Histories of Philosophies in Global Perspectives, 2024

The endeavor of this bibliographical guide is inscribed in the broader effort to reframe the discipline of Philosophy in a global perspective through the account of its history. With the present work readers will gain a broad overview of the materials available in Italian on the histories of philosophy in different regions of the world from the first editions, in the 15th century, to the present. Some of these materials are presented in the extensive introduction to the bibliography, which has been organized according to geographical regions, such as continents and nations, as well as thematic focuses, such as religions, doctrines, or disciplines. Moreover, the introduction discusses two main themes, namely the strong historiographical tradition in Italy and its close connection with political agendas, and the influence of the history of philosophy in the schools. One outcome of the work is the mapping of leading research areas as well as neglected areas, and even the uncovering of some blind spots.

On the aims of the journal and the nature of the present volume.

This Oxford Handbook examines the radical transformation of worldview taking place in the period from the middle of the 16th century (from the publication in 1543 of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus) to the early 18th century (the years immediately before Hume and the Enlightenment). The intention of the volume is to cover both well-known and undeservedly less well-known philosophical texts by placing these works in their historical context which includes tight interconnections with other disciplines (e.g., experimental science) as well as historical and political events. By proceeding in this manner the editors hope to recover a meaning of "philosophy" that comes closer to the way its early modern proponents would have understood and practiced it. The editors also point to the reader-friendly character of this Handbook: in addition to grouping chapters in five categories (metaphysics; the mind; epistemology; ethics and political philosophy; and religion), cross-references to chapters or pages dealing with the same (or similar) issues make it possible for readers to consult the book selectively. Due to space constraints, in the remainder of this review I propose to take advantage of this feature and briefly look at the articles

The main aim of this thesis is to offer a solution to questions concerning the historical nature of the inquiry into the past of philosophy. In order to provide answers, two consecutive steps are proposed: First part of the thesis is focused on contemporary philosophical discussions concerning the nature of history as a discipline and covers the issues raised by narrativists and epistemological philosophers of history in the last sixty years. It also deals with the concepts of historical realism and anti-realism. Eventually, a moderate version of historical anti-realism combined with constructivism is offered as an inclusive and fruitful account of what history is about. In the second part of the thesis, the concept of historical inquiry from the previous chapters is applied to the general issues which are often discussed in relation to the methodology of history of philosophy: historicity of philosophy, context, contextual reading, canon formation, anachronisms, etc. It is shown that the account of history, usually presupposed in philosophical discussions about the history of philosophy, is often based on the naive form of historical realism, although its disadvantages can be easily avoided. History of philosophy thus have both: philosophical and historical aspects. Historical approach to history of philosophy does not lead to a mere chronicle of past opinions, but it can provide a valuable historical and philosophical image of the world.

In the last seventy years, the philosophical community, i.e the people professionally engaged in philosophy, has faced an immense growth, due to huge public investments in universities and research after the Second World War in Western countries [Rescher 2005, Marconi 2014]. We can say that in no other period of the history of philosophy there were so many professional philosophers as in the last fifty years, as there were not so many scientists [Price 1963]. This quantitative increase questions the historian of contemporary philosophy in multiple ways. In the present paper I would like to address the methodological issues in historiography of philosophy related to this increase. Therefore I will ask which are the concepts and methods that we should use in order to understand properly the new situation of contemporary philosophical research. In particular, I will argue that traditional concepts and assumption used in writing the history of philosophy are today just partially fit to describe the contemporary evolution of philosophy. The historical object they aim to describe is transforming in such a way that they are more an obstacle than a help to its comprehension. In order to reach this conclusion, my contribution is structured in the following way. In the first part I will provide some quantitative data about the growth of philosophical enterprise in the second half of twentieth century; secondly, I will sketch an analysis of the key notions used in the traditional everyday work of the historian of philosophy. I will focus on the very workaday " toolkit " , which comprehend notions such as " author " , " text " , " tradition " , " philosophical school " and so on. In the third part, I will present some tensions to which these very commonplace notions are subject due to the quantitative growth of philosophy. In particular, I will attempt to show how the traditional notion of " author " as the central unit of history of philosophy is partially inadequate to describe contemporary philosophy. Hence, I will suggest that quantitative methods used in contemporary studies of science, such as scientometrics and science-mapping, can in part supply this inadequacy, opening at the same time new perspectives on the development of contemporary philosophy. Finally, in the light of the previous considerations, I will reflect upon the role of this non-standard history of philosophy in contemporary philosophical research, situating my view in the debate started with the collection of essays about historiography of philosophy edited by Rorty, Schneewind and Skinner in 1984 [Rorty-Schneewind-Skinner 1984].