Conceptual history (also the history of concepts or, from German, ''Begriffsgeschichte'') is a branch of historical and cultural studies that deals with the historical
semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
of terms. It sees the
etymology
Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
and the change in meaning of terms as forming a crucial basis for contemporary cultural, conceptual and linguistic understanding. Conceptual history deals with the evolution of paradigmatic ideas and value systems over time, such as "liberty" or "reform". It argues that
social history
Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. Historians who write social history are called social historians.
Social history came to prominence in the 1960s, spreading f ...
– indeed all historical reflection – must begin with an understanding of historically contingent cultural values and practices in their particular contexts over time, not merely as unchanging ideologies or processes.
Description and history
Interest in conceptual history was given a particular boost in the 20th century through the publication of the ''Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie'', the ''Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe'', and the journal ''
Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte''.
Conceptual history is an
interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...
methodology. Alongside philosopher
Joachim Ritter, historians
Otto Brunner,
Werner Conze, and
Reinhart Koselleck
Reinhart Koselleck (23 April 1923 – 4 February 2006) was a German historian. He is widely considered to be one of the most important historians of the 20th century. He occupied a distinctive position within history, working outside of any pre- ...
, and sociologist
Erich Rothacker are viewed as its pioneers in the German-speaking world and internationally.
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...
was the leading scholar in the English-speaking world. Since the
Eighties, a relevant development of the history of concepts (''storia dei concetti''), has been promoted by a numerous group of Italian scholars, counting among them Alessandro Biral, Giuseppe Duso, , and
Roberto Esposito, founders of the
Centro di ricerca sul lessico politico europeo. Outlets of the Italian debate on conceptual history have been the short-lived ''Centauro'' (1981-1986) and ''Filosofia Politica'', founded in 1987. Today, conceptual history is promoted also by the History of Concepts Group and its peer-reviewed journal ''
Contributions to the History of Concepts'' under the lead of Margrit Pernau, Jan Ifversen, and Jani Marjanen. Another journal that publishes research in conceptual history is the ''
Journal of the History of Ideas
The ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering intellectual history, conceptual history, and the history of ideas, including the histories of philosophy, literature and the arts, natural and soci ...
''. Examples of conceptual histories include a genealogy of the concept of globalization drawing on the approach of Williams written by
Paul James and
Manfred B. Steger:
This historiographical approach has also been used by the Cambridge Group for the History and Epistemology of Psychiatry who, since the 1980s, has published a long series of papers on the ‘conceptual history’ of the most relevant mental symptoms and diseases.
[Berrios G.E. & Marková I.S. (2002) Conceptual issues. In H. D’Haenen, J.A. den Boer and P. Willner (eds) ''Biological Psychiatry''. New York, John Wiley, pp3-24.]
See also
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History of ideas
Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual hist ...
*
Jus commune
or is Latin for "common law" in certain jurisdictions. It is often used by Civil law (legal system), civil law jurists to refer to those aspects of the civil law system's invariant legal principles, sometimes called "the law of the land" in Eng ...
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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Kończal, Kornelia (2016), Czego możemy się nauczyć od Reinharta Kosellecka, czyli o potrzebie badania polskiej semantyki historycznej. Rozmowa z profesorem Maciejem Janowskim, Stan Rzeczy 1, p. 83-96.
External links
"Begriffsgeschichte" (History of concepts)by Birger Hjørland
CONCEPTA – International Research School in Conceptual History and Political ThoughtCentre of Excellence in Political Thought and Conceptual Change, University of JyväskyläContributions to the History of Concepts WebsiteWhat is Conceptual History? CLEAR Project by Anders Hassing
Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca sul Lessico Politico e Giuridico Europeo (CIRLPGE)
{{Use British English Oxford spelling, date=August 2019
Cultural studies
Interdisciplinary historical research