Intellectual History and the Problem of Conceptual Change

Abstract

How does long-term intellectual change occur? Can we develop a theoretical framework for understanding past systems of knowledge? In this ambitious study, Elías José Palti seeks to reassess the main concepts in the field of intellectual history. Evaluating modes of thought from the seventeenth century to the present, this book aims to prevent an anachronistic understanding of the texts of the past. Palti rejects the idea of conceptual change as a coherent process deriving from one single source. Instead, he offers a convincing explanation of converging developments emanating from three different sources: namely, the Cambridge school, the German school of conceptual history, or Begriffsgeschichte, and French politico-conceptual history. Intellectual History and the Problem of Conceptual Change also closely examines the temporality of concepts, questioning how and why political languages mutate.