Chapter Seven. The Legitimacy Of The Historiographical Concept ‘System Of Philosophy’

This chapter discusses the methodological problems encountered in the analysis of the historiographical concept ?system of philosophy?. For this purpose the chapter refers to Johann Jacob Brucker?s interpretation of the concept, since it is the most important source. The author doubts that Gadamer?s hermeneutics can make a constructive contribution to the method of the history of philosophy. The chapter presents Quentin Skinner?s methodological alternative, to some extent developed in response to the historiography of history of ideas and its employment on the history of moral and political philosophy. The author intention in the chapter is neither to affirm nor to deny the value of Skinner?s methodology, only to question its validity in regard to other branches of philosophy than moral and political philosophy-branches, whose primary object is the world outside us, ?us? understood collectively, the human race and its social world.Keywords: Gadamer; historiography; Johann Jacob Brucker; Quentin Skinner; system of philosophy