The question of a philosophical art history assumes a particular tone and intensity today, at a time when the once transformative potentials of ‘theory’ have become instituted into the discipline and shorn of their former radicalism. What might be invited by a philosophical art history today? To ask this question is, I argue, to reflect not only on the ways in which art history has drawn upon philosophy as a distinct disciplinary regime. It is also to consider the ways in which the ‘philosophical’, as a trait that is not exclusive to philosophy, impacts art history’s relation to itself as a practice of thought. In this paper, I explore the philosophical as a question of thought, rather than an essential feature of a discipline.