Includes bibliographical references (p. [351]-368) and indexes.

Preliminary Materials / L. Catana -- Introduction / L. Catana -- Chapter One. The Concept ‘System Of Philosophy’: The Case Of Jacob Brucker’s Historiography Of Philosophy / L. Catana -- Chapter Two. Brucker’s Practice I: His Exposition Of Bruno / L. Catana -- Chapter Three. Brucker’s Practice II: His Expositions Of Thales, Plato And Aristotle / L. Catana -- Chapter Four. Giordano Bruno’s Hermeneutics: Observations On The Bible In De Monade (1591) / L. Catana -- Chapter Five. Apologetic Strains In Brucker’s Historiography Of Philosophy / L. Catana -- Chapter Six. The Influence Of The Historiographical Concept ‘System Of Philosophy’ / L. Catana -- Chapter Seven. The Legitimacy Of The Historiographical Concept ‘System Of Philosophy’ / L. Catana -- Appendix A. Portraits Of Jacob Brucker / L. Catana -- Appendix B. Jacob Brucker’s Citations In His Exposition Of Giordano Bruno / L. Catana -- Appendix C. Christoph August Heumann’s Scheme Of Periodization / L. Catana -- Appendix D. Jacob Brucker’s Scheme Of Periodization / L. Catana -- Bibliography / L. Catana -- Index Of Names / L. Catana -- Index Of References To Jacob Brucker’s Writings / L. Catana.

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Jacob Brucker (1696-1770) established the history of philosophy as a philosophical discipline in the 1740s. In order to separate this new discipline from other historical disciplines, he introduced the historiographical concept ‘system of philosophy’. The historian of philosophy should use this concept as a criterion of inclusion of past philosophies, and as an ideal form of exposition. The present book describes the origin of this historiographical notion, its implicit Protestant assumptions, and it traces the concept’s impact upon the methods of history of philosophy and history of ideas, as developed over the following centuries. Finally, it discusses the concept’s strenghts and weaknesses as a historiographical tool, arguing that it ought to be given up.