Concept history

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Conceptual history refers to a branch of humanities , especially history and cultural studies , that deals with the historical semantics of concepts . The origin and the change in meaning of the terms are understood as a crucial basis of our current understanding of culture, terms and language.

Genesis and Present

origin

The word first appears in Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of history . It is not clear whether this expression was coined by Hegel himself or was created when the lecture postscript was being written. Then Hegel referred to a type of so-called “reflected history”, which merges into the history of philosophy as the history of art, law and religion. This understanding remained an isolated case and has not caught on.

Media and representatives

The history of concepts was given a particular boost in the 20th century by the publication of the Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , the Basic Historical Concepts and the journal Archive for the History of Concepts . The conceptual history is used as an interdisciplinary method in the humanities; so are z. B. the philosopher Joachim Ritter , the historian Reinhart Koselleck and the sociologist Erich Rothacker are important representatives of this discipline. Even Hans-Georg Gadamer has its philosophical hermeneutics articulated as part of the conceptual-historical paradigm. The historical semantics reacted to accusations against the traditional history of ideas of neglecting historical discontinuities, social contexts and linguistic constituents of general "ideas".

criticism

However, the conceptual history approach was also viewed critically, as the quotations below show: Concepts are not historical in and of themselves, and therefore there can be no conceptual history (Frege); historical considerations are no substitute for content analysis (Röhl).

Quotes

Kierkegaard
"The concepts have their own history just like individuals and are just as unable to withstand the violence of time as they do."
Thank God Frege
“The historical approach, which seeks to eavesdrop on the becoming of things and to recognize their essence from their becoming, certainly has great justification; but it also has its limits. If nothing permanent and eternal persisted in the constant flow of all things, the world would cease to be known and everything would plunge into confusion. One thinks, as it seems, that the terms arise in the individual soul like the leaves on the trees and thinks that you can recognize their essence by researching their origin and trying to explain them psychologically from the nature of the human soul . But this conception draws everything into the subjective and, pursued to the end, annuls the truth. What is called history is probably either a history of our knowledge of concepts or of the meanings of words. "
Hans Christian Röhl
"Where clear terms are missing, the history of terms and ideas serves as a substitute."

Literature (selection)

Conceptual history manuals:

  • Historical dictionary of philosophy
  • Basic historical concepts
  • Rolf Reichardt / Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (eds.): Handbook of political and social basic concepts in France 1680–1820 , Oldenbourg, Munich 1985 ff.
  • K. Barck et al. (Hrsg.): Aesthetic basic concepts. Historical dictionary in seven volumes . Stuttgart / Weimar 2000-2005.

Secondary literature on the history of concepts:

  • Terence Ball: Transforming Political Discourse. Political Theory and Critical Conceptual History , Oxford & New York 1988.
  • Mark Bevir / Hans Erich Bödeker (eds.): Conceptual history, discourse history, metaphor history , Göttingen, Wallstein-Verlag 2002.
  • Carsten Dutt: Challenges in the history of concepts , Heidelberg, Winter 2003.
  • Carsten Dutt: Historical semantics as a conceptual history: Theoretical foundations and paradigmatic fields of application, in: Jörg Riecke (Ed.): Historische Semantik , Berlin / Boston, De Gruyter 2011, pp. 37–50.
  • Timothy Goering: Concepts, History and the Game of Giving and Asking for Reasons: A Defense of Conceptual History, in: Journal of the Philosophy of History 7.3 (2013), pp. 426–452.
  • Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht : Dimension and Limits of Conceptual History , Paderborn, Wilhelm Fink 2006.
  • Hannes Kerber: The concept of problem history and the problem of concept history. Gadamer's forgotten critique of Nicolai Hartmann's historicism, in: International Yearbook for Hermeneutics 15 (2016), pp. 294–314.
  • Clemens Knobloch: Thoughts on the theory of conceptual history from a linguistic and communication science perspective, in: Archive for conceptual history 35 (1992), pp. 7–24.
  • Reinhart Koselleck (Ed.): Historical semantics and conceptual history , Stuttgart, Klett-Cotta 1979.
  • Reinhart Koselleck : Conceptual Stories , Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp 2006.
  • Ernst Müller, Falko Schmieder: Conceptual history and historical semantics. A critical compendium , Berlin, Suhrkamp 2016.
  • Ernst Müller, Falko Schmieder (ed.): Conceptual history of natural sciences: On the historical and cultural dimension of scientific concepts , Berlin, De Gruyter 2008.
  • Ernst Müller (Ed.): Conceptual history in transition? , Hamburg, Meiner 2004.
  • Melvin Richter: The History of Political and Social Concepts. A Critical Introduction , New York & Oxford 1995.
  • Falko Schmieder, Georg Toepfer (Hrsg.): Words from abroad. Conceptual history as translation history , Berlin, Kadmos 2018.
  • Dieter Teichert : The validity of history: conceptual history as philosophy ?, in: C. Schildknecht, D. Teichert, T. van Zantwijk (eds.): Genese und Geltung , Paderborn, Mentis 2008, pp. 107–126.
  • Werner Zillig: Lexicology and Conceptual History, in: Lexicology. An international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabulary . Vol. 2, Berlin & New York 2005 (HSK 21.2), pp. 1829-1837.

Web links

Wiktionary: Concept history  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Hannes Kerber: The concept of the history of problems and the problem of the history of concepts. Gadamer's forgotten critique of Nicolai Hartmann's historicism , in: International Yearbook for Hermeneutics 15 (2016), 294–314.
  2. ↑ See e.g. Bevir / Bödeker 2002, 9ff. K. Palonen: Conceptual history and / as political science , in: Archive for conceptual history 44 (2002), 221–234.
  3. ↑ quoted from Bernd Rüthers; Christian Fischer: Legal Theory. - 5th revised Edition - Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60126-2 , Rn. 171 (without proof).
  4. ↑ Frege, Gottlob: The basics of arithmetic: a logical mathematical investigation into the concept of number. - Centenary issue. - Meiner: Hamburg 1986, p. VII (7 f.).
  5. ^ Röhl, Klaus F .; Hans Christian Röhl: General legal theory. 3. Edition. C. Heymanns, Cologne a. a. 2008, § 1 IV, p. 10.
  6. ^ Margrit Pernau : Editorial . In: Berghahn (Ed.): Contributions to the History of Concepts . tape 12 , no. 1 . Berghahn, New York 2017, p. v-vi .