Teaching history of philosophy

By Michael Cholbi at Metatome, The history survey RIP?

I’d like to know people’s thoughts about a ubiquitious feature of most university’s philosophy curricula, the history of philosophy survey course. Usually, these courses are meant to cover a particular era of the history of Western philosophy (ancient, medieval, early modern, nineteenth century, etc.). I’ve also heard of courses simply entitled ‘History of Philsophy,’ which strikes me as comical in its ambition. I’ve taught early modern several times, and am teaching ancient philosophy this quarter. I’ve enjoyed teaching these courses, but I’ve come to have reservations about the coherence of the history survey course as a way of dispensing knowledge about philosophy and its history...

History of philosophy, early modern, teaching