The oral history of philosophy is in the process of establishing. The article argues that this discipline is fundamentally different from the oral history of philosophers because the oral history of philosophy has to produce besides the empirical data (interview texts) but also a theoretical reflection that is inherent in any form of philosophy. The core product of oral history is the living narrative of a witness, which is only a starting point for the oral history of philosophy that has (...) to work for philosophical generalizations. This article describes for the first time four possible types of reflection in the oral history of philosophy at the empirical level: (1) at the stage of developing the plan and purpose of the interview, when the historian of philosophy identifies the type of empirical data needed to achieve the primary purpose of his research; (2) between views of an interviewer and a respondent, when the interview appears as a common reflection between those two not just as an adjustable conversation; (3) at the reflection level of the respondent (if he or she is a philosopher) preceded the interview; (4) in the mind of the reader / viewer of the interview, who is able to actively rethink ideas expressed in the interview. Types 1-3 of reflection are central to the oral history of philosophy as a discipline (type 4 is not scientific and belongs to the field of public opinion). Consequently, the result of the empirical research of the oral history of philosophy is not only the empirical data itself but also the primary reflections that need to be developed at the next theoretical stage of research. At the same time, the oral history of philosophy can be both a source of data (that is a special interviewing methodology relevant to any type of the history of philosophy), and a relatively independent discipline, the history of philosophy study primarily based on interview material. (shrink)

The article argues that the oral history of philosophy (OHP) will not produce reliable results unless it develops effective methods of counteracting cognitive biases related to human memory. So far, this problem has not even been raised. I highlighted the main cognitive memory biases that affect the validity of the UIF: choice-supportive bias, hindsight bias, fundamental attribution error. Describing the nature of their detrimental effects on the interview, I suggested ways to counteract it: (1) multi-level verification of all actual data; (...) (2) checking of the interview's previous judgment; (3) mandatory data validation for the potential impact of nostalgia; (4) co-creation interviewing; (5) a sequence of questions that will problematize the possible impact of bias during the interview itself. As OHF is still a theoretically unspecified discipline, I have proposed a concept that includes (a) its definition, (b) its place among other historical and philosophical disciplines, (c) its main genres and their specificities; (d) the irreplaceability of its data for the history of philosophy as a science (the ability to engage the interviewer in an active non-self-reflection situation). Interviewer answers often cannot be obtained from traditional sources (articles, books, drafts, letters, margins, etc. ). In the end, I outlined five main arguments in favor of the broad involvement of students of the philosophical faculties in organizing and conducting interviews within the OHF. (shrink)

The beginning of the new realm in philosophical research, which is the oral history of phiosophy, is followed by the consequential set of serious ethical issues. The purpose of this article is to identify moral orientations a historian of philosophy can rely on in oral communication with respondents. The starting point of the analysis is the ethical standards of interviews developed by the Oral History Society. An example to test these standards based on the principle of maximum tolerance is the (...) case of Martin Heidegger. Considering the ambiguity of some outstanding philosophical figures, the main task of the article is to find the line between propagation of the dangerous views of the philosopher and objective philosophical analysis. As a guide to the ethics of interviewing philosophers, I propose the approach suggested by Alain Badieu and Barbara Cassin regarding Heidegger. They claim that a great philosopher can simultaneously be a Nazi and an anti-Semite. I outlined the general feature of interaction with ambiguous personalities in a philosophical interview: (1) the interviewer should not make extreme judgments in advance; (2) We have no right to remove some ambiguous philosophers from discourse, and communication with them is a personal matter of the interviewer. But philosophical community should produce the criteria for exact distinction between the sphere of ethically unacceptable and realm of uncertain. (shrink)