scholarly journals Unit-Ideas Unleashed: A Reinterpretation and Reassessment of Lovejovian Methodology in the History of Ideas

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Knight
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Familial Resemblance ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article argues for an unconventional interpretation of Arthur O. Lovejoy’s distinctive approach to method in the history of ideas. It is maintained that the value of the central concept of the ‘unit-idea’ has been misunderstood by friends and foes alike. The commonality of unit-ideas at different times and places is often defined in terms of familial resemblance. But such an approach must necessarily define unit-ideas as being something other than the smallest conceptual unit. It is therefore in tension with Lovejoy’s methodological prescription and, more importantly, disregards a potentially important aspect of intellectual history – the smaller conceptual units themselves. In response to this, an alternative interpretation of unit-ideas as ‘elemental’ – as the smallest identifiable conceptual components – is put forward. Unlike the familial resemblance approach, the elemental approach can provide a plausible explanation for changes in ideas. These are construed as being either the creation of new unit-ideas, the disappearance of existing ones, or alterations in the groups of unit-ideas that compose idea-complexes. The focus on the movement of unit-ideas and idea-complexes through history can also be sensitive to contextual issues, carefully distinguishing the different meanings that single words may have, in much the way that both Lovejoy and his influential critic Quentin Skinner suggest.

Tensions and Challenges of Intellectual History in Contemporary Latin America

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-115
Author(s):  
Roberto Breña
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
English Language ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

This article provides an overview of some prominent aspects of intellectual history as practiced today in Latin America, especially regarding conceptual history. It delves into the way this methodology arrived to the region not long ago and discusses the way some of its practitioners combine it with the history of political languages, often ignoring the profound differences between both approaches. Therefore, the text stresses some of the most significant contrasts between them. In its last part, the article is critical of the purported “globality” of global intellectual history, an issue that is inextricably linked with the pervasive use of the English language in the field. Throughout, the text poses several of the challenges that lie ahead for intellectual history in Latin America.

scholarly journals M. Mandelbaum and Historiography of Philosophy

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-244
Author(s):  
Marina N. Volf
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Holistic Approaches ◽  
History Of

The views of M. Mandelbaum on the historiography of philosophy have undergone a certain evolution. The paper shows the epistemological foundations of Mandelbaum’s historical and philosophical position. From the standpoint of critical realism and its application to social sciences Mandelbaum shows the advantages and disadvantages of the monistic or holistic approaches, partial monisms and pluralism. He considers A. O. Lovejoy's history of ideas to be the most reasonable pluralistic conception, although its use as a historical and philosophical methodology is limited. Intellectual history, which replaced it, should be called a partial monism, however, according to Mandelbaum, it gets a number of advantages if it begins to use a pluralistic methodology. In this version of methodology, the history of philosophy and intellectual history can be identified. The paper also presents some objections of analytic philosophers against this identification.

scholarly journals “AYAS”: From Aerospace Club to Aerospace Society

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-102
Author(s):  
Avetik E. Grigoryan
Keyword(s):  
Educational Activity ◽  
Study Group ◽  
School Students ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Way

The history of educational activity and linking the education with research in the aerospace-related areas in Armenia is presented – all the way from the creation of an extra-curricular study group for school students dubbed the "AYAS" Aerospace Club to the foundation of the "AYAS" Aerospace Society.

Tensions and Challenges of Intellectual History in Contemporary Latin America

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-115
Author(s):  
Roberto Breña
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
English Language ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article provides an overview of some prominent aspects of intellectual history as practiced today in Latin America, especially regarding conceptual history. It delves into the way this methodology arrived to the region not long ago and discusses the way some of its practitioners combine it with the history of political languages, often ignoring the profound differences between both approaches. Therefore, the text stresses some of the most significant contrasts between them. In its last part, the article is critical of the purported “globality” of global intellectual history, an issue that is inextricably linked with the pervasive use of the English language in the field. Throughout, the text poses several of the challenges that lie ahead for intellectual history in Latin America.

Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832-90) and the Creation of a Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the 19th century

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seema Alavi
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Spatial Connectivity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Temporal Moment ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The 19Th Century

AbstractThe essay highlights the role of one individual, Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832-90), in writing the cultural and intellectual history of imperialisms. It brings his biography, journeys and intellectual forays together to show how he used the temporal moment of the mid 19th century ‘age of revolts’, and the spatial connectivity offered by British and Ottoman imperialisms and re-configured them to his own particular interests. Locating Siddiq Hasan in the connected histories of the British and Ottoman Empires, it views his in-house cosmopolitanism as a form of public conduct that was shaped by Islamic learning that cultivated urbane civility as Muslim universalist virtuous conduct. This was a form of cosmopolitanism enabled by imperial networks, informed by pre-colonial webs of interaction between India and West Asia, and deeply rooted in the scriptures.

War and Peace in International Rivalry. By Paul F. Diehl and Gary Goertz. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. 319p. $49.50.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-516
Author(s):  
John Vasquez
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
International Rivalry ◽  
Ann Arbor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Peace And War ◽  
The Way

When the intellectual history of international relations in- quiry is written for our time, War and Peace in International Rivalry may very well be seen as a seminal book. Along with Frank Wayman, Diehl and Goertz have been at the forefront of a major conceptual breakthrough in the way peace and war are studied. This book is their major statement of the subject and presents their most important findings.

scholarly journals Through the Walls of Time: A Short Reflection on Writing Early Modern Intellectual History

Zutot ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Irene Zwiep
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Jewish Historiography ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
History Of

This short piece takes a longstanding problem from the history of ideas, viz. the use of contemporary concepts in descriptions of past phenomena, and discusses its implications for broader intellectual history. Scholars have argued that being transparent about anachronism can be a first step towards solving the issue. I would argue, however, that it may actually interfere with proper historical interpretation. As a case study, we shall explore what happens when a modern concept like ‘culture’ is applied to pre-modern intellectual processes. As the idea of cultural transfer is prominent in recent Jewish historiography, we will focus on exemplary early modern intermediary Menasseh ben Israel, and ask ourselves whether his supposed ‘brokerage’ (a notion taken from twentieth-century anthropology) brings us closer to understanding his work. As an alternative, I propose ‘bricolage,’ again a central analytical tool in modern anthropology but, as I hope to show, one with unexpected hermeneutical potential.

History of Ideas in Management Communication Quarterly

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rooney ◽  
Bernard McKenna ◽  
James R. Barker
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Organizational Communication ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Management Communication ◽  
Research Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Identity Changes ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
Published Research

For a quarter of a century, Management Communication Quarterly ( MCQ) has published research about communication in the context of work. This article charts the intellectual history of MCQ to trace its epistemic, theoretical, and identity changes. The authors consider how the journal’s published research has changed, why it has changed, and what its future direction should be. The article also considers MCQ as a place for a community of scholars and the journal’s identity as a member of that community. In providing this empirical study of MCQ’s history, it is hoped that organizational communication scholars can consider further questions about their research, their journals, and their communities within the research tradition.

THE INFLUENCE OF GERMAN STATE-THEORY ON THE DESIGN OF THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION

2010 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 669-699
Author(s):  
Nicholas Aroney
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
German State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
American Political Scientist ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article draws attention to an important but neglected story about the dissemination of German and Swiss state-theories among English-speaking scholars in the second half of the 19th century and the influence of these ideas on those who designed and drafted the Australian Constitution. In particular, the article focuses upon the theories of federalism developed by the Swiss-born scholar, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, and the Saxon-born Georg Jellinek, and explains their influence, via the British historian, Edward A Freeman, and the American political scientist, John W Burgess, upon the framers of the Australian Constitution. The story is important because it illustrates the way in which constitutional ideas can be transmitted from one social and political context into a very different one, undergoing significant, though often subtle, modifications and adaptations in the process. The story is also important because it sheds light on the way in which the framers of the Australian Constitution came to conceive of the kind of federal system that they wished to see created. The story seems to have been overlooked, however, not only due to a general neglect of the intellectual history of the Australian Constitution, but also due to the assumption that prevailing Australian political and legal ideas were of Anglo-American provenance. While this assumption generally holds true, a closer examination of the intellectual context of Australian federalism reveals a surprisingly significant German influence on the framers of the Australian Constitution.

PREFACE

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHRUTI KAPILA
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
South Asian ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Major Site ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

In a recent appraisal of the nature of the enterprise of intellectual history, it was remarked, not for the first time, that the “the only history of ideas to be written are histories of their uses in argument”. Though perhaps not in such a self-conscious manner, the essays in this issue consider the transformative capacity of ideas. Modern intellectual history in the European and American context grew out of a critique of the dominance of social history; by contrast, it has received little or no attention in the field of colonial and modern South Asia. Despite the vibrancy of the field in general, the two major works in Indian intellectual history were written almost half a century ago. Eric Stokes's English Utilitarians and India and Ranajit Guha's A Rule of Property for Bengal were both concerned with the making of the regime of colonial political economy. These two important books took the major site of the generation of ideas to be the colonial state and the major actors to be its official intellectuals. Interestingly, both these historians later moved away from intellectual history to social history and the experience of the peasantry. It is an ironic tribute to their books that the subsequent focus of much South Asian historical scholarship has been on the nature of the colonial state and its relation to politics, economy and society. However, the emphasis on the power and the work of ideas, in Stokes's and Guha's initial formulations, slowly but surely gave way to “ethnographies of the state”. A related historiographical move emphasized the politics and culture of resistance, as indeed did Stokes and Guha in their later work.

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