Open‐mindedness and ajar‐mindedness in history of philosophy

Abstract

There was once a princess called Sophia, whose philosophy museum was superior. But most of the stores became locked behind doors, which led to collective amnesia.Then along came a band of ajar-minders, who decided to issue reminders of the treasures inside that hadn't yet died, and opened the doors to all finders. K E Y W O R D S ajar-mindedness, broadening the canon, closed-mindedness, Eurocentrism, history of philosophy, open-mindedness

Methodologies and communities in comparative philosophy

“…One reason that Anscombe's “Modern Moral Philosophy” was so influential was precisely because of her seeing that moral theorizing in her day was constituted by a contingent set of concepts and norms that in effect were a tradition distinct from that of the Greeks (Anscombe 1958). More generally, Beaney (2023) has argued that even when reference to philosophy's history is very much in the background, if a philosopher is completely ignorant of the contingency of the terms in which a particular research program is conducted, that speaks to a closed‐mindedness about alternative possibilities that should worry us. At the very least, whenever we seek to draw considerably earlier thinkers or texts into a modern conversation, the possibility that we are doing comparative philosophy emerges.…”