![]() ![]() It was used to cement the exclusion of non-European traditions from the mainstream canon of philosophy in the 19th century. How, then, did we arrive at the Standard Narrative? The story of a Greek origin of philosophy became common in late-18th century Eurocentric historiography. In these histories, the Standard Narrative tends to be equated to the history of “Western Philosophy”, although it is sometimes used interchangeably with philosophy as such, for instance in Philip Stokes’ Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers (2016). Some form of this picture is present in most influential histories of philosophy, from Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy (1945) to more recent works like Anthony Gottlieb’s The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy (2000), Anthony Kenny’s New History of Western Philosophy (2010), James Garvey and Jeremy Stangroom’s The Story of Philosophy: a History of Western Thought (2012), and A.C. Mainstream histories of philosophy contain what we might call a “Standard Narrative”: that philosophy begins in ancient Greece, usually starting with Thales that it is continuous to the present day (the “Plato to NATO” picture) and that it is a largely self-standing European achievement with minimal influence from elsewhere. ![]()
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