Thomas Stanley’s History of Philosophy

Abstract

The simultaneous publication in 1655 of Thomas Stanley’s History of Philosophy and Georg Hornius’ Historia philosophica gave evidence for the growing need in England and the Low Countries for systematic historical analysis of philosophy. This increasing awareness that philosophy needed its own history was confirmed four years later by the appearance in Frankfurt of Johannes Joensen’s De scriptoribus historiae philosophicae, whose title gave the final blessing to the term `history of philosophy’. The new genre was primarily concerned with those philological, literary, and scientific areas of scholarship that particularly interested the mid sixteenth century. The appearance of philosophical historiography was especially noteworthy in England, where the influence of Francis Bacon’s character and work was pervasive. Stanley’s History of Philosophy can only be understood in the light of the philological incentive arising from Bacon’s encyclopaedic ideal. Although there is no clear relationship between Bacon’s works and Stanley’s background or his classical inclinations, so closely linked with mid-seventeenth-century English poetic circles, there can be little doubt that he was influenced by Bacon’s advocacy of a history of `philosophers’ opinions’. We will examine first the History of Philosophy, because a grasp of the way in which Bacon’s concept of the history of philosophy established itself in England is necessary for an understanding of the contemporary development of philosophical historiography in the Low Countries, including Hornius’ Historia philosophica. Although in the mid sixteenth century Dutch philology and historical research were at a much higher level than in England, the new genre only really developed once scholars had understood the purpose of history of philosophy as proposed by Bacon.