In “The University Philosopher in Early Modern Germany,” Ian Hunter draws his readers’ attention to Paul Richard Blum’s useful distinction for analyzing the various philosophical cultures of early modern Europe, viz. the distinction between Philosophenphilosophie and Schulphilosophie. Here’s Hunter:
Paul Blum has drawn a valuable distinction between Philosophenphilosophie and Schulphilosophie, or “philosophers’ philosophy” and “school philosophy.” Unlike philosophers’ philosophy, which treats truth as something the individual philosopher arrives at through a “method” of reflecting on his own thoughts or subjectivity, school philosophy treats truth as already known and philosophy as the effective pedagogical transmission of truths transcending individual subjectivity.
Ian Hunter, “The University Philosopher in Early Modern Germany, in Conal Condren, Stephen Gaukroger, and Ian Hunter (eds.), The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe: The Nature of a Contested Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 45
