I have been recently reading a few reflections on how the history of philosophy is, or ought to be done. I will engage with these issues on a specific basis in the near future, but in general they come across as somewhat jaded–– no doubt the wisdom of a realist, in the eyes of these authors. It so happened that Ancient Philosophy was particularly in view, but the ideas broadly apply to any scholarship in the history of philosophy, or really any scholarship dealing with the interpretation of texts. I, like many others, have, and have had for a long time, thoughts about what it is to “do” ancient philosophy in an academic setting. This performance of ancient philosophy scholarship, if I may call it that, has always been in my mind grounded on what ancient philosophers actually believed, even if, as it turns out, e.g., Aristotle was wrong about women having less teeth than men. Thus, to turn this into an absurd example, no one could write a journal article on the premise that Aristotle was a proto-feminist because he argued for dental egalitarianism, not because the former claim is laughable and false, although it is, but because the latter claim is baldly untrue. On this view, history of philosophy, right or wrong, good or bad, must ultimately be dependent on the gold or dross, whatever they be by hap, which we find in the ancient philosophers.
On the other hand, there is a view, perhaps even earnestly practiced–– there need be no suspect design–– that skeptically approaches not a dialogue with the philosophers, but a series of encounters with “texts.” There is not necessarily a correct view of Plato, only what one can, with adequate footnotes (of course!), persuasively put forth as emanating from the given Platonic texts one has chosen to invoke. On this view, scholars are free to cobble together a great variety of creative interpretations, not liable to constraint by what the philosophers said, but by what they can be made to say by ingenuity and literary resilience.
One way this division between those who think that the history of philosophy is discovered or created, for this is what I think it amounts to, is to ask this question, “Would you write a paper or book that could be brilliantly sustained (though wrongly, in your honest opinion) by given textual readings?” This option would be especially tempting if the reading was novel in the good sense, a truly insightful and counter-conventional interpretation of a text. Yet should one still produce a work advancing a view of a philosopher, even if, by your philosophical compass, you believe it false? What I worry about is not that too many today think that the history of philosophy is created, as opposed to discovered; rather it is the fear that many have never reflected on the possibility that they are anything but the same.
I am really not qualified to engage in the dispute you discuss. What I would like to say is that when, in 1962, I studied a course called “The History of Philosophy” at Catholic University in Washington, D. C., the professor stated at the beginning, “You cannot read of write a history of philosophy without philosophizing: The history of philosophy is philosophy.”
I think the dichotomy between discovery and creation is at best fuzzy and misleading, and that we’re bound to end up with an unsatisfactory view if we think in terms of it. But I think that’s true quite generally, not simply of the history of philosophy or the interpretation of texts. Put very simply, we create concepts, theories, and interpretations, but they’re about things in the world and hence can be more or less accurate, precise, consistent, coherent, explanatorily powerful, and so on. People frequently make the same mistake about historical interpretation that people make in debates about realism and anti-realism more generally: they draw an inference from the creative nature of theorizing (or concepts, or language, or whatever) to the created nature of what the theories (or concepts, or language, or whatever) are about. But this is just a fallacious inference, at least somewhat akin to a use/mention fallacy.
I think the question you pose is a good one, but doesn’t really get at the main problems. There are, I think, quite a few professional philosophers who don’t do history of philosophy but are quite happy to advance and defend theses not because they think they’re true or even likely to be true, but because they are novel theses for which they have devised some clever arguments. But the philosophers’ attitude toward what they are doing does not really settle anything about what they are doing. They may not be devising philosophical theories and arguments because they think they’re true or likely to be true or plausible or anything other than fun, but for all that they might in fact be devising good theories and arguments that really are true or likely to be true or plausible or what not. The same goes for interpretation; even if a given interpreter doesn’t really believe his interpretation, it might nonetheless be an insightful and accurate interpretation. So I don’t think attitudes really settle anything.
The more interesting and difficult question, I think, is whether we can think of what we are doing as serious and valuable even when we acknowledge that we are not in a position to know whether our interpretations are true. I, for one, am not even sure I know quite what it would be for an interpretation to be true. But I do know at least roughly what it is for one to be clear, consistent, coherent, explanatorily powerful, historically plausible, illuminating, and philosophically interesting. I don’t think the goal of interpretation should be thought of as something like getting into the author’s head or discovering exactly what went through his mind on any given occasion; the objects of interpretation are words, concepts, arguments, and theories, all of which are public objects and not intrinsically private mental entities. I know what it means to ask whether one interpretation makes better sense, is more consistent, coherent, explanatorily powerful, historically plausible, illuminating, and philosophically interesting. I’m not sure what someone who thinks that our interpretations can be all of those things but not true would even mean, but I can understand the thought that our interpretations might be all of those things and yet not false. I guess I’m just not troubled by that possibility. In any case, I’m not inclined to conclude that we therefore just make them up or that there are no substantive constraints on what counts as a good interpretation.
I suspect some of the cynicism about interpretation might be aimed at the way in which, at least in the history of ancient Greek philosophy, interpretation often bleeds together with creative philosophical theorizing that goes beyond anything we could plausibly think is “really there” in the texts. But I don’t see anything objectionable about that, provided that one doesn’t suppose that it’s all just definitely really there. If it becomes impossible to say where the dividing line is in many cases, I don’t see why that should be a serious problem.
Good luck getting things set in Chicago!
Hmmm, something went wrong between my mind and my hands in there at one point. What I wrote was: “I’m not sure what someone who thinks that our interpretations can be all of those things but not true would even mean, but I can understand the thought that our interpretations might be all of those things and yet not false.” What I wanted to write was: I’m not sure what someone who thinks that our interpretations can be all of those things but cannot be true would even mean, but I can understand the thought that our interpretations might be all of those things and yet be false.”
No wonder people find me so hard to understand sometimes.