Recent authors hold that the role of historical scholarship within contemporary philosophical practice is to question current assumptions, to expose vestiges or to calibrate intuitions. On these views, historical scholarship is dispensable, since these roles can be achieved by nonhistorical methods. And the value of historical scholarship is contingent, since the need for the role depends on the presence of questionable assumptions, vestiges or comparable intuitions. In this paper I draw an analogy between scientific and philosophical practice, in order to float one role for historical scholarship that is nonreplicable and noncontingent. It has long been acknowledged that cognitive values – features of theories that facilitate understanding, such as ontological parsimony, ideological simplicity, computational ease and fecundity – play a key role within science. The role of some of these values within philosophy also has received attention but left understudied are the values of novelty and conservativeness. These values influence theory choice, the selection of methodology, the setting of research agenda, and the presentation of results; and are best assessed with a historically informed evaluation. This role for historical scholarship is not replicable by nonhistorical methods, and is not contingent on the presence of questionable assumptions, vestiges or comparable intuitions.

中文翻译：

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哲学的过去：认知价值和哲学史

最近的作者认为，历史学术在当代哲学实践中的作用是质疑当前的假设、揭露痕迹或校准直觉。根据这些观点，历史学术是可有可无的，因为这些作用可以通过非历史的方法来实现。历史学术的价值是有条件的，因为对这个角色的需求取决于是否存在可疑的假设、痕迹或类似的直觉。在本文中，我在科学实践和哲学实践之间进行了类比，以便为历史学术研究提供一个不可复制和非偶然的角色。人们早就认识到，认知价值——促进理解的理论特征，例如本体论的简约性、意识形态的简单性、计算的便利性和丰富性——在科学中发挥着关键作用。其中一些价值观在哲学中的作用也受到了关注，但未被充分研究的是新颖性和保守性的价值观。这些价值观影响理论选择、方法选择、研究议程的设置和结果的呈现；并且最好通过有历史依据的评估进行评估。历史学术的这种作用是非历史方法无法复制的，也不取决于是否存在有问题的假设、痕迹或类似的直觉。