The point of studying the history of philosophy is in large part that it gives our perspective a kind of objectivity, or at least less subjectivity, for in doing so we are able to step outside the patch of ground on which we stand and which our present outlook illuminates.

Reaching the final chapter is a good point to ask whether philosophy makes progress. What has come out of all that has gone before, and is it worth carrying on with it? What is the result and value of the often agonized intellectual striving of some of the top minds of human history? Is our recent philosophizing better than, for example, Plato's? Have we solved philosophical problems he failed to solve? If philosophy made progress would not some of the problems be solved by now?

The question of progress in philosophy, it should be emphasized, is not one that philosophers have failed to ask themselves. It would of course be crippling to actual philosophizing to dwell on the issue continuously. Most of philosophy consists of addressing philosophical problems, not of asking if there is even any point in trying to get better answers to the problems. Periodically in the history of philosophy there have been spates of self-questioning as to the direction of the enterprise, and hardly any great philosophical movement has not also brought with it a substantial, sometimes radical, rethinking of philosophical method.