it's fun reading predecessors because you get to have moments like "hobbes you dirty dog, you stole that from aristotle"

and the secondary thought is like, well yea maybe the idea was just a good one, and introducing it in modified form for your own purposes in the context of your own work is important and frankly relatively transparent, there's nothing duplicitous about it

which is true but i think the main point im getting at is that a lot of those influences and connections aren't emphasized nearly enough

i think this is probably due to 1) the right context is difficult for this type thing, it's difficult to feel comfortable asserting it in passing in an academic piece when it's not your main concern. so even if it's readily acknowledged or understood by experts in the field, the lack of

codification of that knowledge doesn't filter through. which connects to 2) in that the right context is dedicated course material on the subject, but undergrad courses attempt to cover so much quantity they rarely have time to meditate on individual points and tracing their lineage.