Sadler's Quick Takes Number 19 | Claims That You Must Read One Philosopher To Understand Another

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This is the ninteenth in a series of shorter videos in which I give a "quick take" on some matter that I consider important to address, for at least some of my viewers, readers, listeners, followers, or students.
This Quick Take was spurred by the responses I got to reposting a meme with a bit of funny commentary, namely "Imagine thinking you can just skip over everything from Aristotl to Kant. Total newbie mistake". The meme itself shows an old man reading a book, and says: "Reading Plato so I can understand Aristotle, so I can understand Kant, so I can understand Hegel, so I can understand Marx, so I can argue with people on the internet."
A number of the responses that were not off-topic (e.g. wanting to argue on the internet about arguing on the internet) fell into a category that reflects some deeply mistaken assumptions about the history of ideas and what one needs to do in order to study a philosopher, namely that the history of philosophy is basically a linear progression in which to understand the philosopher who comes next, you have to read their main predecessor. This gets reflected in silly advice like Heidegger's remark that in order to understand Nietzsche, one needs to read Aristotle for ten years.
I discuss a number of things wrong with this view on the history of ideas, including the fact that the history of ideas is complex and does not follow a neat linear progression. I also point out that while it can be useful to read predecessors (as well as contemporaries) of a philosopher in order to understand their works, it's almost never the case that you can't understand a later philosopher without first reading an earlier one. In addition to this, many philosophers have multiple predecessors. We also have to specify what "understanding Kant" for example means, that is what parts or portions of the philosopher's work are being referenced. I finish up with a bit of speculation on the motivations, emotional comportments, and mistaken views that feed into this flawed perspective.
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