The concepts of the history of philosophy, the historiography of philosophy or of the history of philosophy, as well as the philosophy of the history of philosophy, are often interchangeable. In the analytic tradition the historiography of the history of philosophy has its own meaning. It originated on the basis of analytic philosophy, and was a reflection on its significance and contribution to philosophy, hereby it revised its ahistorical attitudes towards philosophy and its history in favor of appropriationism. According to the latter, historiography constructs doctrines and puts the importance of a philosopher in direct dependence on his public representation, while remaining itself too philosophical and ahistorical. At first sight, contextualism and the continental dialectical approach help to overcome these difficulties, but these approaches are also subject to appropriationalist historiography. Thus it is concluded that appropriationalist historiography is one of the modes of the history of philosophy.