Here is a link to a review of an anthology of philosophers asking about the
relationship of philosophy to the history of philosophy, which I found
interesting and relevant to our own discussions about the economics/history
of economics.
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=5962
Though it doesn't come up in the review, I have lately been
thinking about another reason to study the history of economic
thought. Suppose one believes, as Hegel taught, that normative authority
is *essentially* historical. This means that the norms that govern
economic practice today can only be justified, if at all, in virtue of
their ability to resolve problems - "aporai" as the Continentals like to
say - that earlier methodological norms gave rise to. We "make sense" of
ourselves as economists only to the extent that we can give such an
historical account. The suggestion is that economic methodology cannot but
be historical.
Kevin Quinn