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If the past is a different country, are different countries in the past?

On the Place of the Non-European in the History of Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2005

C. S. Goto-Jones
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham

Abstract

It is often asserted that even our own past is a foreign country: the ideas of past thinkers are, in some ways, alien to us today. For the European historian of non-European philosophy, not only is the past held to be a different country, but it is also the past of a different country. This is both convenient and problematic all at once. The ‘Western’ historian of non-European philosophy faces a double separation from his/her subject matter; she is both a foreigner and an alien. In this paper, I approach questions of how this historian should orientate herself towards her subject, and why she (and we) should care about it at all.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2005

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