The philosophy of the history of philosophy: Basic models of the 19th century

The origins of the philosophy of the history of philosophy as an organic pa rt of philosophy is to be searched for in the developments of the philosoph ical thinking in the 19th century Germany. Its founding father was G. W. F. Hegel with his famous lectures on the history of philosophy. Parallel to h is conception there were several other attempts at a philosophical approach to the history of philosophy, especially in the writings of F. W. Schellin g, K. Marx and F. Nietzsche. By the latter the reflection of the historical -philosophical knowledge can be seen as the basis of their philosophical co nceptions. The utility of the philosophy of the history of philosophy becom es obvious also by the resolutions of the problems of the historicity of ph ilosophy and of the philosophical nature of history. On these grounds we ca n see the philosophy of the history of philosophy as the philosophical appr oach to philosophy itself, aiming not at an empirical description of the hi storical-philosophical process, but at its understanding and its explanatio n as an unseparable part of the resolution of the most important philosophi cal problems.