Like a great many articles published in our journals, some of these essays adopt a variation of what Jonathan Bennett promoted as "the collegial approach" to the history of philosophy. In this approach we treat the Great Ones as our contemporaries and hold them accountable in the same way as we would our colleagues. The special variation often employed today is to take it as given that the Great Ones can be defended against any alleged confusions, incoherencies, or lapses. As a result, we publish many essays and articles that cleverly defend the Great Ones against problems and objections that not only never entered their heads, but probably could never have entered their heads, given their time and place and the normal constraints operating on any human being trying to do philosophy. In truth, no one can think things through as thoroughly as many of us would like to believe. Sometimes, even a Spinoza or a Leibniz nods. It is an odd thing to do, these daring rescues of the Great Ones. I sometimes wonder whether, as we read and interpret, we ought to recall more frequently the familiar limits of history and human capacity.--Charlie Huenemann [emphases added--ES].
I disagree with my friend Huenemann.
First, a situational claim. Those of us that are trained as analytical philosophers are skilled puzzle solvers and conceptual slicers & dicers. Our very best are also amazing at thinking many moves and counter-moves deep. But we are not trained as systematic philosophers ([recall my post on Thomas Nagel] although I am open to the idea that this is changing with the rise of analytical metaphysics). In particular, we are not trained to discern systematic trade-offs and the way fundamental constraints interact with each other. So, what may seem to us to require an impossible skill in another, may well just be a limitation that is a consequence of our perspective (which has its own virtues).
Second, it is of great instrumental value to try to figure out what a very good philosopher would say to an objection. When I was starting out in the profession -- and in the thrall of extreme antiquarianism --, I would frown on, even ridicule papers that would pose to, say, Descartes, 'what if he rejects P' (whereby P is anachronistic, etc.). But the fact is such exercises can be very fruitful: one often learns, thereby, unsuspected features of another philosopher's position that mortal you had overlooked on earlier readings. With luck, one even starts to find evidence that some textual evidence that historical predecessor to P was, in fact, reflected on by (say) Descartes (in correspondence, or in the Passions of the Soul, etc.).*
There is a further way in which such an exercise is very fruitful: one learns to develop a systematic sensitivity. I know this may sound as special pleading on behalf of the history of philosophy, but I believe one reason to expose advanced students of philosophy (folk like you and me) to the history of philosophy is to help think in critical conversation with systematic thinkers. (Alan Nelson has defended such a view.) Not all historically important philosophers were systematic thinkers. But even some of the most persistent anti-systematic-philosophers [i.e., my own philosophical ancestors] have to become adept at recognising the moves of the enemy.
Fourth, one way to distinguish the nodding philosophers from the wide-awake ones, is to repeatedly put them to the test of what they would say to objections. The insomniac philosophers tend to develop an impressive track-record in such exercises. (This is how they become recognized as really worth studying: by repeatedly checking if they are wide awake or dosing off!) It's true, of course, that some canonical philosophers are in the canon in order to teach exemplars of some bad mistakes, and others because of Western parochialism or Kantian triumphalism, or the need of a third empiricist, etc. But the ones that survive repeated, ongoing scrutiny are not careless, really. I don't think this is just due to the existence of freaks that are insanely smart people (although Spinoza and the reported Socrates may have thought that philosophers were such freaks of nature). In some cases a lot is at (constantly) stake in what we write: eternal salvation, persecution, heresy, freedom, etc. If philosophy is not merely a seriously enjoyable addiction or pass-time, but a matter of life and death, then nodding may not be an option. Note that this is compatible with the recognition that, perhaps, we are better at argument or are better at distinguishing different kinds of modality. (Having said that, I also often notice that our training can makes us miss very different ways of conceiving of modality.) It turns out that despite the mantras we tell ourselves, the main skill of the historically enduring philosophers is not really careful argument (recall Bolton).
Finally, even if it is true that the "Great Ones" do nod sometimes, we shouldn't allow the thought to infect our scholarship. For, it is a recipe for complacent sloppiness. As a matter of scholarly heuristics it is far more likely that middling scholar has missed something than that Leibniz or Kant has blundered. To put this point differently: if you want to enter a strange universe read Leibniz, seriously, for if you want to find the "familiar limits of...human capacity" take a hard long look in the mirror.
* I once wrote a paper that explored what Spinoza might have thought about angels in the Ethics (where they are not mentioned). Of course, that was a cheat because I knew he had at least mentioned angels. I learned a lot about Spinoza by writing that paper.
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