I tend to think that the history of philosophy is not (just) of historical significance, but that it is an integral part of philosophy.

I think that it would be delusional to think that philosophy of the last, say, twenty years, is, by coincidence the best philosophy ever produced by humans and that therefore exposing oneself to just those twenty years means blindfolding oneself and risking to mistake one’s prejudices for genuine philosophical “intuitions”. Therefore, I think that it is key to read texts written in different time-periods and coming from different philosophical traditions. With “texts” I mean primary texts (at least in translation), not just summaries of them in English.

To make an easy example: A contemporary scholar of, say, cosmopsychism who has never read Abhinavagupta or Utpaladeva may have heard about their philosophical positions and incorporate a paragraph on one or the other in their last article. But given that this engagement is based only on hearsay and not on a direct engagement with Utpaladeva or Abhinavagupta’s thought, the potential of Utpaladeva or Abhinavagupta’s thought to trigger a real rethinking of cosmopsychism is lost and they are used only to confirm the contemporary scholar’s own views. 

For instance, “material cause” and “efficient cause” are Aristotelian categories and superimposing them on Vedānta in an uncritical way risks leading to fundamental misunderstandings. The antidote? Reading Sāṅkhya, Nyāya and Vedānta theories of causation, so as to. understand similarities, but also differences with the Aristotelian paradigm.

There might come a time when secondary literature on, e.g., causation in Sanskrit philosophy or on specific authors will be enough. But we are not there yet. Only a few texts have been edited among the millions of manuscripts that await an edition, a small percentage of these have been translated, and even less have been properly studied. At this stage, any conclusion reached by secondary literature is preliminary at best.