Author ｜
Fang Wei-gui
Abstract ｜
The German history of concepts or “Begriffsgeschichte” constitutes one of the few contributions owed to German research in the field of the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) that noteworthy scholars highly regarded internationally. In many respects it is considered an exemplary achievement. It is especially the approach to the history of concepts developed by Koselleck that has received considerable attention of experts around the globe. This model owes its relevance to its development, in the course of which it freed itself from an indebtedness to the primary schools of thought and theories of the 20th century. It prefers instead to let the heterogeneity of the research material direct its concrete way of the proceeding and focuses on the exploration of the semantics of concepts that structure knowledge, but also on their migrations, that is to say the transfer of concepts. The internationalization of this well-known paradigm of historical semantics has not only revealed its remarkable attractiveness as a methodological approach, but it has also triggered a number of research projects dedicated to the history of concepts. It has shown itself capable of permanent adaptation to different research orientations and their distinct cultural and historical backgrounds. In order to attain a better understanding of the potential as well as the limitations that characterize the method particular to the history of concepts, it is useful to present German history of concepts in the concrete contexts of its origin and initial development, and to outline its theoretical concepts and concrete practices fairly systematically, while exploring its further development and the changes it underwent as well as the debates they triggered. Focusing on the relationship between social history and history of concepts can recognize the latter approach in the best way. Moreover, the history of its competition and controversy with discourse history and the history of metaphors that allow us, to recognize the scientific aims of these different approaches and their advantages, and elucidate the potential knowledge and epistemological potential of the history of concepts in this way only the better. It is in the wake of the internationalization of the history of concepts, however, that all of the problems discussed in the methodology-centered debates have increasingly revealed their urgency.
keywords ｜
Theory and practice of the history of concepts, history of concepts and social history, history of concepts and discourse history, history of concepts and history of metaphors, international impact of the history of concepts