The History of Political and Social Concepts

The History of Political and Social Concepts PDF

Author: Melvin Richter

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1995-09-07

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 019535852X

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Since the 1960s, German scholars have developed distinctive methods for writing the history of political, social, and philosophical concepts. Applied to France as well as Germany, their work has set new standards for the historical study of political and social language, Begriffsgeschichte. The questions these scholars address, and the methods they apply systematically to a broad range of sources, differ as much from the styles of Hegel, Dilthey, and Meinecke as from those of A.O. Lovejoy, J.G.A. Pocock, and Quentin Skinner. Begriffsgeschichte treats political language neither as autonomous discourse, nor as the product of ideology, social structure, or elite manipulation. Although conceptual historians agree that the field of action is defined by language, they place concept formation and use within historical contexts. By surveying political and social discourses systematically, this genre traces how the great modern revolutions have been conceptualized in sharply contested forms by competing political and social formations, as well as by individual thinkers. Combining intellectual with social history, historians of concepts track linguistically the advent, mentalities, and effects of modernity. In The History of Political and Social Concepts, Melvin Richter analyzes the theories which have generated conceptual history, and their reinterpretation of key concepts such as Max Weber's three types of legitimate Herrschaft, and that of civilitÖè in France. What is it that we know when we learn the history of a concept? What difference does it make that we know it? After assessing the programs and achievements of Begriffsgeschichte, the author argues the need for an analogous project to chart the careers of political and social concepts used in English-speaking societies. Addressed not only to historians of political and social thought, this work will interest students and scholars of political culture, social historians, and historians of ideas, historiography, law, language, and rhetoric.

Political concepts and time

Political concepts and time PDF

Author: Javier Fernández Sebastián

Publisher: Ed. Universidad de Cantabria

Published: 2011-08-10

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 8481026093

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The essays compiled in this volume, written by distinguished experts, present a broad panorama of the most important methodological challenges faced by conceptual history today, as well as some more specific contributions regarding the temporal dimension of certain modern concepts. At a moment when time and concepts ,and political concepts in particular, are no longer obvious and taken for granted but have themselves become historical matter, this book does not limit itself to an updating of the state of the art; it also offers very useful lessons for the development of future research into this field.

Why Concepts Matter: Translating Social and Political Thought

Why Concepts Matter: Translating Social and Political Thought PDF

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-05-11

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9004194908

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Translation is indispensible to transmissions of knowledge across time and place; to understanding how and what others think. There is a vast stock of theories about how to translate, deriving mainly from controversies about sacred and literary works. Yet there is little discussion of the distinctive issues involved in translating political and social thought. This volume breaks new ground by focusing on them. Thirteen scholars consider problems arising from the study of translation and the cultural transfer of texts. Especially novel is the application of these issues to two relatively new disciplines: translation studies, and the history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte). This volume opens a discussion of what and how each of them can learn from, and contribute to, the others.

Logics of History

Logics of History PDF

Author: William H. Sewell Jr.

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-07-27

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 0226749193

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While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists’ treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians. Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.

Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy PDF

Author: Seymour Martin Lipset

Publisher: CQ Press

Published: 2001-04

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13:

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In 100 essays, scholars from throughout the world introduce and analyze ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophers and philosophies. The first section explains 40 major western and non- western philosophies that underlie the major political theories. The second provides intellectual and biographical information on 26 philosophers and some of the schools surrounding them, such as Hobbesian and Machiavellian thought. The third explores philosophical ideas such as anarchy, women and democracy, and war and civil conflict. Each article provides a bibliography and identifies related entries. c. Book News Inc.

The Politics of the Book

The Politics of the Book PDF

Author: Filipe Carreira da Silva

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2019-04-29

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0271083913

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It is impossible to separate the content of a book from its form. In this study, Filipe Carreira da Silva and Mónica Brito Vieira expand our understanding of the history of social and political scholarship by examining how the entirety of a book mediates and constitutes meaning in ways that affect its substance, appropriation, and reception over time. Examining the evolving form of classic works of social and political thought, including W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, G. H. Mead’s Mind, Self, and Society, and Karl Marx’s 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Carreira da Silva and Brito Vieira show that making these books involved many hands. They explore what publishers, editors, translators, and commentators accomplish by offering the reading public new versions of the works under consideration, examine debates about the intended meaning of the works and discussions over their present relevance, and elucidate the various ways in which content and material form are interwoven. In doing so, Carreira da Silva and Brito Vieira characterize the editorial process as a meaning-producing action involving both collaboration and an ongoing battle for the importance of the book form to a work’s disciplinary belonging, ideological positioning, and political significance. Theoretically sophisticated and thoroughly researched, The Politics of the Book radically changes our understanding of what doing social and political theory—and its history—implies. It will be welcomed by scholars of book history, the history of social and political thought, and social and political theory.

Why Concepts Matter

Why Concepts Matter PDF

Author: Martin Burke

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-05-11

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 9004194266

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The volume explores distinctive issues involved in translating political and social thought. Thirteen contributors consider problems arising from the study of translation and cultural transfers of texts, in particular in terms of translation studies, and the history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte).

The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy

The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy PDF

Author: Gerald F. Gaus

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 869

ISBN-13: 0415874564

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This comprehensive work provides an up-to-date survey of social and political philosophy, charting its history and key figures and movements, and addressing enduring questions as well as contemporary research.

Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy

Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy PDF

Author: Jonathan Wolff

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-10-27

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0691149003

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Previously unpublished writings from one of the most important political philosophers of recent times G. A. Cohen was one of the leading political philosophers of recent times. He first came to wide attention in 1978 with the prize-winning book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. In subsequent decades his published writings largely turned away from the history of philosophy, focusing instead on equality, freedom, and justice. However, throughout his career he regularly lectured on a wide range of moral and political philosophers of the past. This volume collects these previously unpublished lectures. Starting with a chapter centered on Plato, but also discussing the pre-Socratics as well as Aristotle, the book moves to social contract theory as discussed by Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, and then continues with chapters on Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The book also contains some previously published but uncollected papers on Marx, Hobbes, and Kant, among other figures. The collection concludes with a memoir of Cohen written by the volume editor, Jonathan Wolff, who was a student of Cohen's. A hallmark of the lectures is Cohen's engagement with the thinkers he discusses. Rather than simply trying to render their thought accessible to the modern reader, he tests whether their arguments and positions are clear, sound, and free from contradiction. Throughout, he homes in on central issues and provides fresh approaches to the philosophers he examines. Ultimately, these lectures teach us not only about some of the great thinkers in the history of moral and political philosophy, but also about one of the great thinkers of our time: Cohen himself.