History of ideas

Information about History of ideas

The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history. Work in the history of ideas may involve interdisciplinary research in the history of philosophy, the history of science, or the history of literature. In Sweden, the history of ideas has been a distinct university subject since the 1930s, when Johan Nordström, a scholar of literature, was appointed professor of the new discipline at Uppsala University. Today, several universities across the world provide courses in this field, usually as part of a graduate program.

The Lovejoy approach

The historian Arthur O. Lovejoy (1873–1962) coined the phrase history of ideas and initiated its systematic study, in the early decades of the twentieth century. For decades Lovejoy presided over the regular meetings of the History of Ideas Club at Johns Hopkins University, where he worked as a professor of history from 1910 to 1939.

Aside from his students and colleagues engaged in related projects (such as René Wellek and Leo Spitzer, with whom Lovejoy engaged in extended debates), scholars such as Isaiah Berlin, Michel Foucault, Christopher Hill, J. G. A. Pocock and others have continued to work in a spirit close to that with which Lovejoy pursued the history of ideas. The first chapter/lecture of Lovejoy's book The Great Chain of Being lays out a general overview of what is intended (or at least what he intended) to be the program and scope of the study of the history of ideas.

Unit-ideas

Lovejoy's history of ideas takes as its basic unit of analysis the unit-idea, or the individual concept. These unit-ideas work as the building-blocks of the history of ideas: though they are relatively unchanged in themselves over the course of time, unit-ideas recombine in new patterns and gain expression in new forms in different historical eras. As Lovejoy saw it, the historian of ideas had the task of identifying such unit-ideas and of describing their historical emergence and recession in new forms and combinations.

Modern work

Quentin Skinner has been influential with his critique of Lovejoy's "unit-idea" methodology. Instead, he proposes a sensitivity to the cultural context of the texts being analysed and the ideas they contained.

References

  • Arthur Lovejoy: The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, (ISBN 0-674-36153-9)
  • Arthur Lovejoy: Essays in the History of Ideas, (ISBN 0-313-20504-3)
  • Isaiah Berlin: Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, (ISBN 0-691-09026-2)
  • Mark Bevir: The Logic of the History of Ideas (ISBN 0-521-64034-2)

See also

External links

Research is a human activity based on intellectual investigation and aimed at discovering, interpreting, and revising human knowledge on different aspects of the world. Research can use the scientific method, but need not do so.
..... Click the link for more information.
History is the study of the past, focused on human activity and leading up to the present day.[1] More precisely, history is the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race [1]
..... Click the link for more information.
IDEA may refer to:
  • Electronic Directory of the European Institutions
  • IDEA Center
  • IDEA League
  • Ieros Desmos Ellinon Axiomatikon
  • Improvement and Development Agency
  • Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
  • Indian Distance Education Association

..... Click the link for more information.
Intellectual history refers to the history of the people who create, discuss, write about and in other ways propagate ideas. Although the field emerged from European discourses of Kulturgeschichte and Geistesgeschichte, the historical study of ideas has engaged not only
..... Click the link for more information.
The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include (but are not limited to): How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought
..... Click the link for more information.
history of science began with the publication of William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (first published in 1837). A more formal study of the history of science as an independent discipline was launched by George Sarton's publications,
..... Click the link for more information.
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
(Royal) "För Sverige - I tiden" 1
"For Sweden – With the Times" ²
Anthem
Du gamla, Du fria
..... Click the link for more information.
Uppsala University (Swedish Uppsala universitet) is a public university in Uppsala, Sweden, 64 kilometres (40 miles) north-northwest of Stockholm.[1] Founded in 1477, it claims to be the oldest university in Scandinavia, outdating the University of Copenhagen by
..... Click the link for more information.
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873, Berlin – December 30, 1962, Baltimore) was an influential American intellectual historian, who founded the field known as the history of ideas.
..... Click the link for more information.
twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 to 1991 to be the Short Twentieth Century.
..... Click the link for more information.
The Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, is a private institution of higher learning located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

Johns Hopkins offers its main undergraduate and graduate programs at the Homewood campus in Baltimore and maintains full-time campuses in
..... Click the link for more information.
René Wellek (August 22, 1903—November 10, 1995) was a Czech-German comparative literary critic. Wellek, along with Erich Auerbach, is remembered as an eminent product of the Central European philological tradition.
..... Click the link for more information.
Leo Spitzer (Vienna 7 February1887 - Forte de Marmi 16 September1960) was an Austrian Romanist and Hispanist, and an influential and prolific literary critic. He was known for his emphasis on stylistics.
..... Click the link for more information.
Isaiah Berlin, OM (June 6 1909 – November 5 1997), was a political philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the 20th century.
..... Click the link for more information.
Michel Foucault (IPA pronunciation: [miˈʃɛl fuˈko]) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and sociologist.
..... Click the link for more information.
John Edward Christopher Hill (February 6, 1912–February 23, 2003) was an English Marxist historian and the author of many history textbooks.

Born in York, Christopher Hill entered Balliol College, Oxford in 1931.
..... Click the link for more information.
John Greville Agard (J.G.A.) Pocock (born March 71924) is a world-renowned historian and expatriate New Zealander, noted for his trenchant studies of republicanism in the early modern period (especially in Europe, Britain, and America), for his treatment of Edward Gibbon and
..... Click the link for more information.
great chain of being or scala naturæ is a classical and western medieval conception of the order of the universe, whose chief characteristic is a strict hierarchical system.
..... Click the link for more information.
Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University.

He will be a distinguished visiting professor in the humanities at Queen Mary, University of London, in the 2007-2008 academic year and will be professor in
..... Click the link for more information.
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873, Berlin – December 30, 1962, Baltimore) was an influential American intellectual historian, who founded the field known as the history of ideas.
..... Click the link for more information.
Isaiah Berlin, OM (June 6 1909 – November 5 1997), was a political philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the 20th century.
..... Click the link for more information.
Mark Bevir is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

He is the author of The Logic of the History of Ideas, which advocates an approach in the field of the history of ideas that is at odds with that of Arthur Lovejoy, often
..... Click the link for more information.
Anthropology (from Greek: ἄνθρωπος, anthropos, "human being"; and λόγος, logos, "speech" lit. to talk about human beings) is the study of humanity.
..... Click the link for more information.
great chain of being or scala naturæ is a classical and western medieval conception of the order of the universe, whose chief characteristic is a strict hierarchical system.
..... Click the link for more information.
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher; prominent classical liberal political theorist; and sociological theorist.

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world,
..... Click the link for more information.
Historiography studies the processes by which historical knowledge is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias,
..... Click the link for more information.
History is the study of the past, focused on human activity and leading up to the present day.[1] More precisely, history is the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race [1]
..... Click the link for more information.
IDEA may refer to:
  • Electronic Directory of the European Institutions
  • IDEA Center
  • IDEA League
  • Ieros Desmos Ellinon Axiomatikon
  • Improvement and Development Agency
  • Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
  • Indian Distance Education Association

..... Click the link for more information.
The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies. (Compare history of ideas.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.