“Is philosophy so focused...?” Philosophy contains within itself the History of Ideas. Just as we can talk about regular history using grand sweeping narrative

“Is philosophy so focused...?” Philosophy contains within itself the History of Ideas. Just as we can talk about regular history using grand sweeping narratives broken into epochs we can also talk about currents of thought that sweep through philosophy and rough granular eras. So yes, yes you can: you had the Ancients (Aristotle and the like) and they had certain ideas about the world – then there was the rise of scholasticism (religious/theological supremacy) – then came the Renaissance (and humanism), then the Modern Era (with Descartes) all of which had shifts in focus – then the Enlightenment – the contemporary philosophy with its emphasis on representation, Frege's and Wittgenstein's linguistic turn … None of this does justice to the History of Ideas but you gotta start somewhere – it's not a coincidence that the great epoch in Western Civilisation correspond to similar eras in philosophy. Hope that helps.