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abstract |
In inter-war France, history of philosophy was a very important academic discipline,
but nevertheless its practitioners thought it necessary to defend its identity, which
was threatened by its vicinity to many other disciplines, and especially by the emergent
social sciences and history of science. I shall focus on two particular issues that
divided traditional historians of philosophy from historians of science, ethnologists
and sociologists, and that became crucial in the definition of the identity of their
disciplines: the conception of history and the interpretation of texts. By analysing
representative discussions and positions, I shall show that traditional historians
of philosophy needed to reassert their own approach to history, which, borrowing the
term from Bergson, I define as ‘snapshot’. This approach is focused on a particular
idea or text rather than a narrative. I shall also show that history of philosophy,
in its traditional form, would have been undermined both intellectually and institutionally
by the opposite ‘narrative’ approach of history of science and of the social sciences.
Social scientists openly attacked history of philosophy’s methods and, in the eyes
of traditional philosophers, its existence as an academic discipline. The same opposition
is to be found in evaluation of past texts, which for traditional historians of philosophy
were to be read as timeless documents, while for historians of science, ethnologists
and sociologists were to be considered as documents exhibiting a particular mentality.
However, between these alternatives there were intermediate positions. I shall in
particular consider that of Léon Brunschvicg: he embraced a narrative approach and
considered texts as documents of different ways of thinking, but at the same time
carried on employing philosophical methods and defending the institutional position
of philosophy. I shall argue that this was possible partly because of the considerable
amount of power he enjoyed at the Sorbonne. |