The Value of the Ideas of the Past Thinkers

i think that the value of the ideas of the past thinkers is it partly, or, if possibly even more than partly, perhaps largely, to stimulate the person in the present to think about things differently. So i'm not entirely against that way of doing it. If it's productive in terms of new thinking, new ideas, and helps us to make progress intellectually, then it's performed a function. And that's part of what past thinkers do.