The Philosopher ‘s History and the History of Philosophy

Abstract It is important to distinguish the history of philosophy (what philosophers have done) from the historiography of philosophy (what historians of philosophy do). In this paper I will try to use ‘historiography’, not ‘history’, when that is what I mean. I won’t, however, use the ugly word ‘historiographer’, since there is little danger of thinking that a historian of philosophy is somebody who makes history rather than someone who writes history. Our main concern here is the historiography of philosophy; but I must spend some time in discussing the history, since the nature of the historiography depends on the nature of the history. In its turn, the nature of the history of philosophy depends on the nature of philosophy.