Introduction
Caveat: Always ask of those who claim to be presenting the thought of, i.e., "interpreting" the work of, a dead philosopher, or even a living philosopher - "Was N really the "N'ist" or "N'ian" you are making her/him out to be?" Does "N'ism" accurately represent the thought of N?
Example: Was Plato a "platonist" let alone a "neoplatonist"? Is "platonism" really the thought of Plato? The various "neo-platonisms" throughout the history of philosophy???
The answer! More often than not is not! And so - Each of us must go back to the philosopher's "text" itself. You will discover that the "problems" and "concepts" of a dead philosopher are not identical to those which animate us today given the dialectical dispositions of our contemporary conceptual frameworks.
Moreover, each great philosopher sets in motion the means for her/his own dialectical undoing by provoking successors to reply, not only to their respective substantive claims or theses, and supporting arguments, but also to their respective conceptions of the problems which animated them. And so, it may not be possible to read, for example, Plato "pure" once we have read Hume. Or Hume "pure" once we have read Wittgenstein? Moreover, we have a clear moral obligation, as philosophers, to read a given philosopher's successors before assessing the "worth" of her/his work. So we must read Colin McGinn & Derrida, for example, before we can say what the value - for us - is of Wittgenstein's or Humes's or Plato's work. In other words, we must be cognizant of & appreciative of all of the history of philosophical thinking in terms of problem-articulation, in terms of the default & defined concepts of both the philosopher and her/his successors. But this would be a daunting, if not impossible, task early on in one's "doing" philosophy. So, for example, for most of us it is probably best to work one's way back to the thinking of Plato, bit-by-bit, after one has worked one's way through the "live thinking" of contemporary living philosophers. This means that you will have to "reread" Plato everytime you engage your mind in the dialectic of a contemporary philosophical problem. For example, the contemporary "problem of consciousness" which animates McGinn and others is not the same "problem" that animated Descartes or Augustine or Plato, appearances notwithstanding.
Of course, there have been philosophers who have developed a particular line of thought of a predecessor without having attempted to represent the whole of the latter's thought. These cases are difficult enough to interpret as cases of N'ism. Where the later philosopher selects more than one strand to weave into a new version of N, the cases are even more difficult to interpret as cases of N'ism. Why? Because, paradoxically, the principle of selection becomes more suspect as the number of strands increase. The paradox is in what the principle leaves out, even up to the next to the last strand. Of n so-called "strands" of a philosopher's thought, why leave out all but one!
Below, I have alerted you to this concern for selected philosophers, those most likely to suffer from this mis- or mal- appropriation by contemporary "interpreters", those who are more interested the "doctrinal" appropriation of the philosophical work of others rather than the doing of philosophy itself, i.e., the critical, reflective, & synoptic pursuit of truth itself. For some philosophers, e.g., Plato & Descartes & Kant, this must be a perennial alert. For others, e.g., William of Ockham [Occam], it is a recent concern as more "analytic" philosophers discover his work. And for Nietzsche as some "continental" philosophers reclaim his work.
See my notes on philosophy. These are provisional & always under revision . . . . . To view or print them you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click here to download your free copy.
Survey Resources
Philosophy Pronunciation Guide Brendan Lalor - University of Central Oklahoma
Pantheon of Famous Philosophers Ohio State University
Philosophers Gallery Waterloo University, Canada
Philosopher's Almanac Miami University of Ohio
Photographs of Philosophers Sijmen Hendriks
Philosopher Links Rhodes College
Philosophers & Their Texts Edinburgh University
Presocratic Philosophers Mining Company
DEAD BUT VIBRANT & INFLUENTIAL PHILOSOPHERS