history of philosphy

For one, you will find that a lot of recent philosophers still actively quote their predecessors, are familiar with their predecessors work, who in turn quote their own predecessors, and so-on-and-so-on, until you reach Pre-Socratic philosophers.

You're asking why you should care about the ground floor, when you can have a roof.

>>1589880
The same is true of all disciplines, not just philosophy

Yeah have fun trying to figure out Hegel by yourself without any previous knowledge of philosophy

If you don't buy into the idea of it being foundational knowledge of the discipline which later philosophers built on, it can still be good for perspective.

When you read about something somebody said 2000 years ago and you realize it's still applicable today, and that it's mirrored in more modern philosophy, you know the guy was probably onto something. If a man theorizes that "this is how x works" and then you see x working that way long after they're dead, it's a lot more compelling than the person looking backwards and saying the same thing. Also, reading who inspired the modern philosophers is still important. It's like asking "Why read primary sources when X dude wrote a nice history of the Roman empire?" You get to form your own damn opinions from the source material, that's why.

Still, I don't always agree with 'start with the Greeks'. Start with whoever you want, but a lot of what they're saying will still echo older philosophers, and if you want a deeper knowledge of philosophy you should read them eventually. Some of their ideas (particularly in regards to physics and shit) are obviously obsolete, but some are still pretty coherent.

>>1589814
You start with the Greeks before contemporary philosophy for the same reason that you learn arithmetic before calculus.

history of philosophy provides context, especially for the overall project. For example my prof framed german idealism as a response to Hume and the problem of induction. Kant responds to Hume which then leads to a split between Fichte and Schelling, which is then synthesized in Hegel which in turn leads into the later Schelling, Schopenhauer and even Nietzsche. If you don't understand what gave rise to this progression of though or what is in response to then you will not be able to grasp the intended overall project of the thinker and thus you miss a lot of what is intended. Like Heidegger thinks, everything is always already thrown into a horizon of understanding, a context, which gives significance. You must view philosophy and philosophical thought within the horizon of the history of philosophy

>>1589814
>why should i even care about anything but contemporary philosophy like in every other discipline
because contemporary philosophy is an absolute joke

>>1589814
>why should i even care about anything but contemporary philosophy like in every other discipline
I tried to escape the old stuff and read only contemporary authors, it didn't work.

Philosophers are very busy interpreting and criticizing their predecessors with their own contemporary lenses, in fact I might even make the metaphilosophical claim that philosophy itself is a dialogue between the present and past, and know it's not original content.

Even Plato himself builds on the Poets, Pythagoreans, etc.

>>1589814
As the rest have said before, it's necessary to gain understanding of previous philosophers of the philosophers you wish to understand to know how they base it.

It's best to start with the Greeks because they pretty much kickstarted Western Philosophy. You'll find that Parmenides's idea of having a distinction of "it is" and "it is not" find influence in many philosophers such as Heidegger.

>>1592204
Heidegger also directly references Aristotle and his four causes in question concerning technology