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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2015
Hegel is widely recognized as the preeminent philosopher of the history of philosophy. His Lectures on the History of Philosophy are designed in large measure to answer questions about philosophy's apparent futility by reformulating the presentation of the seemingly pointless succession of forms of philosophy so as to show its organic development (Hegel, 1994, 24). To reveal the proper shape of the history of philosophy, what is extraneous to it had to be omitted. Much that had previously been regarded as philosophy was now to be treated under the heading of religion. The distinction between philosophy and religion, the decision as to what was philosophy and what was religion, took on an importance it had previously lacked. Although subsequent historians of philosophy did not always share Hegel's concern to show the organic development of the history of philosophy, his decisions about what was to be included and what excluded from philosophy proved particularly important in respect of the question of the place subsequently given to Indian philosophy. For this reason Hegel deservedly holds a central place in current discussions about the philosophical canon.