history of concepts newsletter 1

Mailing Address Karin Tilmans / Wyger Velema,

University of Amsterdam,

Department of History, Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam,

The Netherlands

e-mail: [email protected]

http://www.hum.uvalnll-huizingainieuws

Colophon Editors: Karin Tilmans, Wyger Velema,

Freya Sierhuis Lay-out:

Bas Broekhuizen

• •

UIZINGA INSTITUUT Onderzoekschool voor Cultuurgeschiedenis

• Research Institute and Graduate School of Cultural History

• History of Concepts Newsletter

Nr 1, Fall1998

• • • •

• • • In this Issue:

• A Dictionary of Basic Historical Terms

• • • The History of Dutch Concepts

• Conceptual History Projects in Denmark

• The Conceptual History of Finnish Political Culture

• German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity

• French Research on linguistic History of Conceptual usages

•

History of Political and Social Concepts Group: A statement concerning its founding and goals Melvin Richter, Fail 1998

T his organization brings together all those

concerned with the history of political and social

concepts. It is open to individual researchers, as well

as to those involved in larger projects, past, present,

or planned. Its goal is to establish a forum where ihe

many different approaches to conceptual history can

be discussed; intellectual and organizational

experiences shared; and comparative studies

prepared.

Thanks to Henrik Stenius (University of Helsinki and

Director of the Finnish Institute in London), ihe

foundation meeting was held at ihe Finnish Institute

in London, June 18-20, 1998. Those present came

from fourteen countries and represented collective

works on the history of political and social concepts

in Germany, France, The Netherlands, Finland,

Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, and Russia . The

participants agreed to form an international society.

This will meet regularly, publish a newsletter, and

develop an archive in one or more international

languages of projects and proposals, as well as

interviews with, and critical reflections by those who

have led and taken part in them. An e-mail network

and a home page will soon be established.

The newsletter, of which this is the first issue, will be

edited for the ftrst two years by Karin Tilmans and

Wyger Velema at ihe University of Amsterdam. They

can be contacted at the following address: University

of Amsterdam, Department of History, Spuistraat

134, 1012 VB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This is

the address to which ihose interested in joining ihe

group should write and to which all materials for

inclusion in the second issue of the newsletter should

be sent.

The next international conference, planned by

Jacques Guilhaumou (Marseilles) and Raymonde

Monnier (Saint-Cloud) will be held in the Fall of

1999 at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Saint

Cloud, just outside Paris. Other members of ihe

group will also organize panels at meetings of

international and national organizations in disciplines

involved in ihe study of the history of political and

social concepts.

Taking part in ihe foundation meeting were: Reinhart

Koselleck (Bielefeld), Quentin Skinner (Cambridge),

Pim den Boer (Amsterdam), Michael Freeden

(Oxford), Patricia Springborg (Sydney), Bjorn

Wittrock (StockholmfUppsala), Janet Coleman

(London), Martin Burke (New York), Sisko Haikala

(Jyviiskylii), Daniel Gordon (Amherst), Tuija

Pulkkinen (Helsinki/Greifswald), Hans Blom

(Rotterdam), Jose Rosales (Malaga), Jacques

Guilhaumou (Marseilles), Raymonde Monnier (Saint

Cloud), Matti Hyviirinen (Tampere), Jan Ifversen

(Aarhus), Jan-Werner Muller (Oxford), MikhaiJ Ilyin

(Moscow), Gyorgy Bence (Budapest), Peter Baehr

(St. Johns, NewfoundJand), Karin Tilmans

(Amsterdam), Wyger Velema (Amsterdam), Uffe

Jakobsen (Copenhagen), Dario Castiglione (Exeter),

Christine Faure (paris), lain Hampsher-Monk

(Exeter); as well as the meeting's organizers, Kari

Palonen (Jyviiskylii) and Melvin Richter (New York).

The History of Dutch Concepts Wyger Velema

C onceptual history, or Begnffsgeschichte, has, of

course, long been a flourishing disclpime m

Germany, resulting, among other things, in the recently

completed monumental series Geschichtliche

Gnmdbegriffe. In recent years however interest in

conceptual history has, for a variety of reasons, spread

beyond Germany. The Handbuch politisch-sozialer

Gnmdbegriffe in Frankreich 1680-1820, which started

to appear in 1985, is a clear indication ofthis trend. For

although it originated in Germany, its contributors

include boih French and American scholars. The

growing international imporlance of conceptual history

is also evident in a number of recent Anglophone

publications, for instance in ihe work of Terence Ball

and Melvin Richter. Impressed and inspired by ihe

results of ihis international research, a group of Dutch

scholars, institutionally united in ihe Huizinga Institute,

decided to initiate a research project in Dutch

conceptual history.

1

From the beginning in 1990, it has been clear to all

those involved that the Dutch project can not and

should not aspire to the scale of either the

Grundbegriffe or the Handbuch. The Dutch project

selects a limited number of concepts - fifteen to (at the

very most) twenty-five - and studies these in great

depth. The history of each individual concept is

researched not by individual scholars, but by groups of

scholars, always including historians, historians of

literature, and an historians. This approach is intended

to stimulate both interdisciplinarity and the utilization

of a broad and varied range of sources. The discussion

about the concepts to be selected for study in depth is

still being conducted, but a majority of participants in

the project favors the following criteria for inclusion:

1. The concept should have played a prominent role in

Dutch public discourse over a long period of time; 2.

The concept should be of such central historical

imporlance that a reconstruction of its history should

contribute to a broad discussion about the existence (or

non-existence) of a specifically Dutch pattern of

conceptual history; 3. The concept should lend itself to

international comparison.

Although there are a number of significant differences

between the Grundbegriffe and the Handbuch, both

heavily emphasize the second half of the eighteenth

century as a crucial period of conceptual

modernization. The Dutch project also takes this period

as a main chronological focus. At the same time,

however, it includes the whole of the seventeenth

century and for some concepts goes back even further.

There are good reasons for following this path. The

position of the Dutch Republic was unique in early

modem Europe. It was a state without a monarchy (let

alone an absolute one), in its social life the aristocracy

was of relative insignificance, its economic life was

dominated by commerce instead of agriculture, and its

religious and cultural life was remarkably open and

pluralist. One of the questions the Dutch project will

attempt to answer is whether this extraordinary

political, social, economic~ and cultural situation

resulted in an equally unique pattern of conceptual

development.

At the present moment the work of the first two

research groups working on the concepts of 'liberty'

(E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier and W.R.E. Velema) and

'fatherland' (N.C.F. van Sas) is completed. The results

2

will be appearing in two volumes of essays, to be

published in the Spring of 1999 by Amsterdam

University Press. The launch of the flISt two volumes

in the series has been preceded by the publication of a

volume of general essays on conceptual history: lain

Hampsher-Monk, Karin Tilmans and Frank van Vree,

eds. History of Concepts: Comparative Perspectives

(Amsterdam, 1998). A third research group, working

on the concept of 'civilization' and chaired by Pim den

Boer, is in the process of finishing its work and will

hopefully go to press in late 1999 or early 2000. In

1996 the Dutch project received a major research

grant, specifically intended for the exploration of the

conceptual world of Dutch republicanism. This has

resulted in the fonnation of two more research groups,

one working on the concepts 'republicl

republican/republicanism' (Martin van Gelderen and

Wyger Velema), the other on the concepts

'citizen/citizenship' (Joost Kloek and Karin Tilmans).

Publication of these two volumes is planned for late

2000 or early 2001. Since the concepts that have so far

been selected for study in depth have been largely from

the sphere of politics, it is now generally agreed among

those participating in the project that a broadening of

scope is necessary. High on the list of priorities is the

expansion of the project to include the study of such

cultural concepts as virtue, sin and honor.

A comparative dictionary of basic historical terms Nikolai Kopossov, Project's Coordinator,

Saint-Petersburg State University

The Dictionary will offer a comparative analysis of

the principal terms used to conceptualize history

and society, with special reference to the vocabulary of

the social sciences. It is conceived as a means of

promoting mutual understanding between Russian and

Western scholars, as well as a contribution to the

critique of the social sciences' intellectual apparatus.

The novelty of the proposed project consists of the

systematic comparison of the key concepts of the

social sciences emanating from in different cultural

traditions. Both their meaning and the ways people use

them vary enormously in Russian, English, German

and French languages and in the respective intellectual

traditions in the social sciences. The main goal of the

Dictionary is to flnd these differences in order to create

an effective instrument of cross-cultural understanding.

This DiclionGlY will enable srudents coming from the

different culrural perspectives to get an adequate

understanding of the differences and similarities of the

foundations of the social sciences' intellectual

appararus in different culrures. Special attention will be

paid to the murual intellecrual influences and to

semantic transformations endured through the

acculrurated concepts. The Dictionary is addressed to

the large audience of srudents, researchers and

translators. As such it will enable scholars and students

to penetrate the barriers of language and raise the level

of understanding of societies by a significant order of

magnitude.

Russian social sciences need such a dictionary, and not

only because of the nearly century-long isolation from

Western social sciences. The opening of Russia

towards the West during the last decade has made

apparent both the possibility of successful

collaboration in this domain and the recurrent

misperceptions and growing frustration on both sides.

Since in the contemporary world social sciences are as

important a foundation of democratic society as of

international integration, their role in Russia's transition

to democracy should not be underestimated. The

Dictionary will help better integration of Russian social

sciences into the international community.

Three volumes will be published in two separate

editions in Russian and English, followed by the

Supplement containing bio-bibliographical information

about the thinkers concerned and their murual

influences. It is expected that the project will be

completed in 6 or 7 years by an international team of

about 50 or 60 authors. The list of entries will be

divided into thematic sections corresponding to the

main semantic flelds of the social sciences' vocabulary.

Each of these fields will be the subject matter of an

international workshop. Besides the regular meetings

(seminars, colloquia etc.l to be held both in Saint

Petersburg and abroad, close working contact between

the participants will be ensured by means of the

Internet The Internet will also pennit the rapid

publication of the workshops initial results, but

preliminary publications in the form of books are also

foreseen.

The introduction of Russia within the community of

Western nations makes the mutual understanding

between peoples the crucial issue of our time. Th.is is

especially true for the social sciences, given the

important role they play in the process of world

integration. But it is also true that the long isolation of

Russia from the West had profoundly marked its social

sciences, which throughout Soviet history were used as

an indispensable tool of propaganda. It goes without

saying that the terminology of Russian social sciences

was borrowed from other European languages. The

semantic transformations undergone by these terms in

their process of 'acculturation' due to the peCUliarities

of the national intellectual tradition, to Marxist

ideology, to the discursive practices of state

propaganda, and to the grammatical strucrures of the

Russian language, pertain to much less obvious and

less investigated issues. That is why even now, despite

growing international collaboration, the illusory

similarity of scientific vocabularies is an obstacle to

murual understanding which has produced a certain

frustration in both Russian and Western scientific

conununities. Hence the necessity of comparative

investigation of the main concepts of Russian and the

Western social sciences. The principal task of such a

srudy is to identify the linguistically fixed and

historically conditioned differences between national

traditions of understanding the social phenomena, as

well as the influence these differences exercise over the

thinking of the social scientists.

Th.is task obviously calls for broadening the framework

of analysis. The oversimplified opposition of Russia

and the West obscures the diversity of intellectual

traditions within what is currently refereed to as

Western science itself. In particular there is no

common European languages and even within

relatively homogeneous Western society the plurality

of languages creates a diversity of ways of looking at

the world. The comparison of the vocabulary of

Russian and Western social sciences has thus to be

complemented by that of the social nomenclarures

within the main European languages (at least in

English, French and Germanl. To be sure, linguistic

analysis of these nomenclarures requires the use of

methods developed by historical semantics on the one

hand, and by the cognitive sciences, on the other. Thus

the interplay of culMal contexts and mental

mechanisms responsible for the formation of our

3

concepts is itself the subject matter of empirical

research. In other words, the vocabulary of the social

sciences must be submitted to critical analysis. This

objective is of pressing importance for a number of

reasons.

The intellectual disorientation of the social sciences has

recently been discussed by many observers. From the

very beginning of their history dating back at least to

the XIXth century the social sciences laid down claints

to having discovered the universal laws governing

society. It was precisely to tackle this task that their

conceptual systems were created. Nowadays the

collapse of their major paradigms (such as Marxism,

structuralism or psychoanalysis) has made even the

possibility of such a quest problematic. Some

observers suggest that we live now in a period of the

most profound intellectual transfonnation, consisting in the abandonment of the 'regime of historicity'

inherited from the Enlightenment. This means that the

linear vision of historical time, dominated by images of

the future providing both the past and the present with

their meaning, has collapsed. It would appear that

some of the basic assumptions of the social sciences

have been put into question. So the intellectual climate

today seems favorable for the re-examination of their

intellecrnal apparatus.

The semantics of historical terms has been the subject

of many recent studies. Theoretical approaches in this

domain include German Begriffsgeschichte and the

discourse analysis of several English-speaking

historians. In the German tradition, concepts are

considered relatively stable and fIxed by language

clusters of meanings intrinsically linked to historical

phenomena whose essence can be immediately grasped

by means of the study of concepts. By contrast,

discourse analysis tends to reject the very notion of a

concept in favor of that of ideology or discourse,

regarded as a flexible system of linguistic behavior, so

that propositions (and the words they consist of) are

held to have meaning only insofar as they are linked to

particular historical contexts and discursive strategies. It would seem sensible to join the advantages of both

approaches, since words, propositions and discourses are equally important for semantic theory. At different

levels, there are irreducible mechanisms and structures

calling for appropriate methods of analysis. One should

ignore neither semantic structures of the notions nor

4

discourse strategies, rhetorical devices or means of

persuasion (so far as the very genre of the dictionary

makes it possible). But behind the occasional

contextually bound meanings of historical terms there

remain structural features of the social sciences

conceived as an intellectual paradigm, as a historically

constructed Weltanschauung, which is also appropriate

for investigation.

The comparative approach, which forms the core of

this project, is no doubt a privileged tool of critical

analysis. The structure of this Dictionary depends on

the logic of the comparative research. Since

comparison of particular terms is meaningful only

insofar as those terms are considered as elements of

larger conceptual systems, it is appropriate to begin

with the framework of semantic fIelds belonging to the

vocabulary of the social sciences. The Dictionary will

be divided into thematic sections corresponding to

these semantic fIelds considered as terminological

sub-systems (for example: power relations, types of

communities, forms of thought, ways of representing

time and space, etc.)

The initial choice of semantic fIelds cannot escape

arbitrariness, so that control over it must depend on

discourse analysis of actual conceptual networks. For

example, it is important to investigate to what extent

the boundsry between 'State' and 'society drawn by

nineteenth-century philosophy of law, has been

actually assimilated in different languages and

intellectual traditions and has consequently become

inherent to our ways of thinking. In other words, is it

true that terms that apply to power relations and terms

that describe types of communities actually form

distinct semantic fIelds, or are they interrelated in a

different way that does not necessarily imply the

State/Society dichotomy ? This kind of investigation, if

systematically pursued, could enable us to compare the

'thematisation' of the social world in the different

languages. For example, the difference between the

'social' and the 'cultural' seems to be much more

profound in Russian than in German, English or

French. In Russian, the 'social' (and especially its

equivalent of Russian origin, 'o6I1!ecmt:eHHbiff)

connotes primarily 'collective 'official', 'belonging to

the state' and ultimately 'inhuman ', while the social

roots of culture are often neglected. On the other hand,

in French and in English these terms are overlapping

and sometimes even interchangeable in a number of

contexts, while the Gennan tradition seems to be an

intermediary case. By contrast, in German the word

'Kullur' is semantically much stronger than the word

'Gesellschaft', especially if compared with French, so

that the French term 'Ie social' may be considered a

functional analogue of the German term 'Kultur since

both serve as key concepts of the respective social

vocabularies.

The study of the boundaries between semantic fields

should be complemented by the analysis of their

internal structures. For example, in German the field of

terms for forms of communities is structured around

the opposition of 'Gemeinschaft' and 'Gesellschaft',

which has no direct analogues in other languages under

study in this Diclionary (even in English the opposition

of 'society' and 'Community' is far less striking).

Similarly, the opposition of 'spirit' and 'Mind' (',l[yX

and 'Pa9yM) IS absolutely fundamental for

conceptualizing consciousness in Russian, while it is

much less significant - and is at the same time

modified - in English, while being almost absent in

French and German, where the notion of 'Esprit' (or

'Geist ') practically embraces the meanings of both

Russian words. But it is the same word 'Pa9yM which

is the only Russian equivalent for a term as significant

as 'Reason' ('Raison ', 'Vemunft,), that stresses the

opposition of the spiritual and rational. Or consider

another typical example, the word', 'Slale' ('Ela/',

'slaal;. Its Russian equivalent, 'FocyoapcmoO, springs from one of the Czar's titles, 'rocyoapb', reflecting the Byzantine idea of autocracy. Obviously,

the underlying vision of the State is a mixture of the

corresponding Western notion (known in Russia since

the XVIIth century) with a more despotic and

patriarchal concept of power. Undoubtedly the

identification of the State with one of its forms

resonates with the structure of the whole semantic field

of terms dealing with power relations. It is in the

framework of this structural comparison that we are

going to investigate the history of particular social

terms.

The structural and historical analyses should be

complemented by investigations of the different

cognitive mechanisms and forms of thought which

have bearing on the semantic structures of the

historical terms. The study of metaphors reflecting

extralinguistic experience (for example, that of space

and time) is one way to address this task. Another way

is to examine the classificatory devices social scientists

use to organize their material, since these devices play

an important role in the formation of social and

historical concepts.

To carry out such a program it will be necessary to set

up an international team of authors representing the

variety of both academic disciplines and approaches to

the study of historical concepts. The Dictionary should

be the result of a collective effort: to promote mutual

understanding of scientific communities its authors

should start by anempting to understand each other. It

is only by means of sustained collaboration through a

number of seminars, conferences and workshops that

an efficient team can be formed. The whole team will

have to be divided into working groups, each being

responsible for the investigation of a particular

semantic field. To ensure close contact between the

working groups some of the authors will be

encouraged to participate in more than one. Since the

project is a long-tenn enterprise, it could ensure the

collaboration of scholars belonging to the different

generations. For example, certain entries of the

Dictionary could be presented by the younger scholars

as the output of their dissertations jointly supervised by

elder colleagues from different countries.

An atmosphere of intellectual freedom will be an

important condition of success of the project, in order

that the researchers coming from different cultural and

intellectual backgrounds may work closely together.

Even the theoretical foundations of the Dictionary

should be studied through the dialogue of different

intellectual traditions, since the possibility of the

'translatability' of each tradition in the others' terms is

far from self-evident. For example, the program of the

Begriffsgeschichle too heavily depends on the meaning

of the German word 'BegriJt, connoting the possibility

of grasping intuitively the essence of a historical

phenomenon, not plainly perceptible to those

acculturated outside the German-speaking world. The

absence of such a notion in English, French or Russian

makes the whole idea far less persuasive for the

speakers of these languages. So we have to deal with

the fact that the intellectual means we mean to employ

to carry out the project are far from being uniform and

universally acceptable. It seems inevitable that we

5

should start by discussing them. Such theoretical work

should from the very beginning go hand in hand with

ernpllicalresearch.

The work on the Dictionary is to be anticipated by a

preliminary stage, which will allow the organization of

a team of authors, to fonnulate the theoretical program

and main hypotheses of the project, to gain experience

in using different methods of research and to prepare

the provisional versions of a number of articles. It is

expected that this stage will start in September 1998

and will take about two years. For this period, number

of international meetings are planned, including a

colloquium on "The Semantics of Historical concepts"

to be held at the Saint-Petersburg State University in

June 1999.

Conceptual History Projects in Denmark Jan Ifversen, European Studies, Aarhus

University

C urrendy in Denmark there are two research

projects concerned with conceptual history. One

project is part of a larger research program with the

title 'Democracy Project'. 'Democracy Project', which

is funded by the Danish Social Science Research

Council and affiliated with the Dept. of Political

Science of the University of Copenhagen, consists of

five sub-projects. One of these, 'Contested Concepts:

Changes in Political Concepts and Democratic

Development in Denmark', works within a definite

conceptual history perspective. The purpose of this

project is to achieve a clarification of central,

political concepts by investigating changes in the use

of these concepts in the political debate in Denmark

since 1945. At the center of the project are the

concepts of democracy and politics. In Danish

political culture democracy in particular has

constituted a contested concept that has been spread

out between different political positions ranging from

the national-popular ones (authentic democracy) to

grass-roots movements (close democracy) to

liberal-elitist ones. Consequently, this project will

focus on an analysis of which concepts of democracy

have been dominant among which actors at which

times, in which situations and with which purposes.

The analysis of the concept of democracy will

6

include other contested key concepts such as nation,

elite, citizenship, participation and representation. The project started in 1997 and will run for a

four-year period.

The other Danish research project concerned with

conceptual history was launched in 1995 under the

title 'Network in European Conceptual History'. The

initiative came from the European Studies program

of the University of Aarhus and was fmanced by a

small grant from the Danish Research Council for the

Humanities. The aim was to create a Danish network of researchers in conceprual history. The network has

especially concentrated on discussing the methodical

and theoretical implications of conceptual history.

Conceptual history has been discussed in relation to

many fields, among them linguistics, the history of

ideas and political science. In the spring of 1995 the

network arranged its first conference under the

heading 'Conceptual History between Language,

History and Ideas'. At the conference the current

advances within German and French conceprual

history were presented, among these Professor

Lusebrink's work on the intercultural <limension of

conceptual history and the work of French historians

on investigating the relationship between event and

concept (Sophie Wanich). In addition, the conference

treated the relationship between conceprual history

on the one hand and rhetoric and discourse analysis

on the other. Since then the network has continued its

work along these lines and it has held a series of

lectures on the relat ionship between conceptual

history on the one hand and discourse analysis and

literary analysis on the other.

The various methodical and theoretical discussions

may be systematized in four perspectives:

1. Concepts in discourse-Foucault's archaeology of

knowledge

2. Concepts in practice-sociological discourse

analysis (Norman Fairclough)

3. Concepts in texts-New Historicism

4. Concepts in conceptual patterns-development of

Begriffsgeschichte in Germany

(Reichardt and Lusebrink)

1. Concepts in discourse In Foucault's systematic archaeology of knowledge,

concepts function as one of the four central elements

in the analysis of discursive fonnation. The three

others are the object, the position of the subject, and

the strategy/theme. Foucault empbasizes "the

conceptual instruments" in the combination of

utterances in discourse. But in contrast ·to traditional

Begriffsgeschichte he empbasizes the necessity of including other linguistic elements besides the

semantic relation between word and concept. He

emphasizes in particular two decisive aspects: the

meaning of the position of the subject and the role of

the strategy. Both aspects point towards an emphasis

of the role of practice for the semantic level. For

Foucault it is a matter of pointing out the active role

of discourse (its practice) in the elaboration of the

content. By emphasizing the meaning of the position of the subject he associates a linguistic description of

discourse (enunciation) with a sociological one

(institution). The position of the subject acts as the point of enunciation in discourse and as the point of

authority in the institution. Likewise, strategy acts as

an internal demarcation of themes via concepts (but

conceptual analysis is not commented on) and as an

external demarcation via other discourses and

institutions. In respect to the external demarcation,

one must further distinguish between the demarcation

of other discourses (discursive competition) and of institutions. From the perspective of discourse, other

discourses must be regarded as an inter-discourse.

Therefore, a distinction bet\.Veen inter-discourse and

intra-discourse must be introduced in discourse

analysis (1. 1. Courtine) '. Interdiscourse functions as

the external point of reference that intra-discourse

deals with.

Furthermore, Foucault endeavors to establish a link

between discourse and "non-discursive practice, II

where the dividing line seems to be a question of the

degree of discursive coherence. Opposite the

systematizing discursive practices are apparently

looser practices such as for instance "everyday

practice".

The network's discussion of the archaeology of knowledge has given rise to what are two crucial

Jean-Jacques Courtine: Quelques problemes theoriques et methodologiques en analyse de discours, in Lamgages nr 62, pp. 6-127.

issues for conceptual history. One of them concerns

developing the fonnal, linguistic description of

conceptual architecture (see item 4); the other

pertains to the practical and inter-discursive

orientation of concepts in discourse (see item 2).

2. Concepts in practice The network's examination of Foucault's archaeology

of knowledge was prompted by the issues already

indicated by Koselleck in his discussion of the

relationship between conceptual history and social

history. The need to give conceptual analysis a

pragmatic foundation was highlighted by Koselleck.

But whereas he undertakes a separation of Begriff

and Sache, the network has been concerned with illuminating the inner coherence between the two

terms. Two questions arise in this connection: I) how

is the use of a concept embedded in the concept's field of meaning? 2) how does communicative

practice influence the meaning of the concept?

In continuation of Foucault, the linguist Norman

Fairclough has sought to answer these questions by

looking at the relationship between the type of

discourse and its use' In addition, the type of

discourse enters in the understanding of the

discourse. Fairclough places a pragmatic perspective

on discourse analysis in part by emphasizing the

"cues" built into the sender's orientation of discourse

towards a receiver, in part by illuminating the

meaning of the receiver's interpretation in the

decoding of these cues.

3. Concepts in texts A similar attempt to elaborate a pragmatics of discourse has been carried out within the movement

in modem literary history called New Historicism (NH). NH arose from an attempt to tone down the

boundaries between literary and historical analysis. In

the network we have especially been preoccupied

with NH as a new, historical textual analysis in which

texts are analyzed in a domain of tension between the

type of discourse (genre), the historical situation and

the strategy of the text. Strategy is taken to mean the text's potentials or choices in respect to existing

Nonnan Fairclough: Language and Power. London: Longman 1989; Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Blackwell 1992.

7

gemes and its specific representation of a historical

siruation (cf. Sache in Koselleck). The text thus

enters into a dialogue with existing geme

conventions in order to represent a certain historic

siruation. NH has especially been used to clarify the

relationship between individual texts and types of

discourse or genres in order to show how different

types of discourse can cross one another and thus

create new meaning in the individual text.

4, Concepts in conceptual patterns Within the narrow perspective of conceprual history the network has discussed the various new

developments in the circle around Handbuch

politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich.

Inspired by strucrural semantics, the network has

been busy edifying the formal-analyrical side of

conceprual history. This has fIrst of all been reflected

in systematic work on constructing quantifIable text corpora ("quantitative-serial methods of

investigation"). Second, by means of analyses of

frequency it has sought to systematize the analysis of

conceprual patterns in delimited semantic fIelds . This systematics has been strengthened by a systematic

analysis of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations

surrounding selected key concepts in the delimited

fIelds. Thus it has succeeded in qualifying its work on equivalency, complementarily and opposition in

conceprual analysis. Furthermore, it is shifting from analyses single words to analyses of sentences.

The network will continue its discussion of

theoretical and methodical issues in respect to

conceprual history. Two areas will be in focus in the

furure work of the network: fIrst, the development of

a historical Dramatics of discourse, in which the

network will seek to clarify the concepts' embedment

in the discourses used in connection with both

discursive cues and a systematic investigation of the

siruations where the discourses are exercised; second,

the investigation of the various possibilities

thematicized around the designation rhetoric.

The network has not only taken up theoretical and

methodical issues. The network has also been concerned with narrowing down key European

concepts. Focus has been directed toward the

concepts used in representing Europe as a unity of

some kind. The network has thus organized a series

8

of seminars aimed at illuminating the concepts of civilization and culture in a European context. The

shifting meanings of the concept of civilization were

considered in 1 8th century discourses in the fields of

ethnography and the philosophy of history. The modern use of the concept of civilization (from

Spengler and Elias to Huntington) has also been

carefully discussed and related to other concepts such

as the West and globalization . The concept of culrure

constirutes a crucial European concept that is a

concomitant to civilization and thus unavoidable in

work on key European concepts. Other associated concepts taken up by the network include those of

nation, empire and federation . It is the network's

intention to map out the semantic fields surrounding

a historical European discourse. This work will

continue with considerations of concepts like

respublica christiana, balance of power and

European integration .

Conceptual changes in European political cultures concepts in Context: The Conceptual History

of Finnish Political Culture

Matti Hyvarinen

History

O fficially, the Finnish project was launched in

1996 as a three-year project fmanced by the

Academy of Finland. The grant enabled the project to employ two doctoral srudents, and later on a research

assistant as well for one year. In 1997, Matti Hyvarinen, received a three year contract as a senior

researcher in the Academy of Finland with some

extra resources for the project.

The project did not start from ground zero. To point out just one thread in the background work, the

project was clearly proceeded by Kari Palonen's

landmark work on the concept of politics, both in Gennan and French, as well as his insistence on

propagating this approach to political thought and

political history among Finnish political scientists,

philosophers and historians.

The main result of the three-year period will

probably, and hopefully, be the two dissertations (by

Eeva Aamio and Ismo Pohjantammil, but the main

part of the work remains to be fulfilled over the years

to come.

Objective: to write an anthology The aim of the project is not an overview of the

history of Finnish political culture, not even broad

histories regarding the chosen concepts. To put it

another way, we are not planning to write a Finnish

version of the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. At this

stage of the work, the main purpose is to write an

anthology on chosen key 'analytical' concepts of

Finnish political culture. Such normative concepts as

liberalism, socialism and legalism, have also been

postponed to a further anthology. Perhaps a list of the

selected concepts, writers and their primary

disciplinary backgrounds may give a more tangible

conception of the project:

State (valtio)

Tuij a Pulkkinen (philosophy)

In practice, there are many problems with schedules

with a big and active group such as this. One of the

consequences may be that various articles will cover different periods of time, and writers may possibly

utilize different chunks of collected material.

Source materials The compilation of pre-selected materials for the

writers constitutes one of the main ways of working

together in the project. Over the rust year of work,

government appropriations to create new temporary

jobs were used to gain assistance for this compilation.

The main categories of material are:

I. The (partly) computerized databases of the

Concepts in Motion Research Institute for the Languages of Finland.

The Conceptual History of Finnish Political Culture We have had access to selected materials of old

Matti Hyvarinen, Kari Palonen, Henrik Stenius written Finnish (meaning the period before the

editors 1809 status as a Grand Duchy of Russia), and the

The Conceptllal Change of European Politics archives collected by Finnish linguists. The

Sattelzeit in Finland? database also includes a great deal of classic

Kari Palonen (political science) Finnish novels.

Finnish Political Languages Before the Autonomy

Kari Saastamoinen (history)

Citizen (kansalainen)

Hernik Stenius (history)

Democracy (demokracia, kansanvalta)

Ilkka Turunen (history)

Government, Administration , Domination (halli/us.

hallinto, hallinta)

Kyosti Pekonen (political science)

Nation, People (/cansa, kansakunta)

Ilkka Liikanen (history)

Party (puolue)

Eeva Aarnio (political science)

Politics (politiikka)

Kari Palonen (political science)

Power (valta)

Matti Hyvarinen (political science)

Representation, Parliamentarism (edustus.

eduskunla, parlamentarismi)

Ismo Pohjantammi (political science)

Revolution (vallankumous)

Risto Alapuro (sociology)

Society, Community (yhteisklmca)

Pauli Kettunen (history)

2. Lexicons, encyclopaedias and handbooks.

3. Manifestos of political parties (most of which are

available on disc).

4. Selected database of legislative material.

Records of the Parliament and its Committees

and Government reports for discussion and

legislation are available as copies.

5. A selection of key political periodicals is

available as in photocopy form. In a couple of

cases, the pre-selected material has been further

narrowed down for particular writers.

6. Political memoirs and biographies.

The Finnish Case From the thirteenth century to 1809, the present-day

'Finland' was a province of Sweden, and Swedish

accordingly was the language of administration,

politics and education. The growing nationalist

movement, that swelled from the 1830s onwards,

directed its protest against the domination of the

Swedish language and the Swedish elite. In this

process, written Finnish. was created as a purposeful

process by the rising "Fennoman" elite. The process

was amazingly rapid, with the basis of written

9

Finnish was created between 1840 and 1870.

Paradoxically, a number of the most radical

Fermomans had spoken Swedish as their mother

tongue, hence the entire beginning of Finnish

political culture took place within and in competition

with a dominant Swedish public arena. In addition to

Swedish, German, French, Russian and English had a

strong impact on the political language and are thus

relevant.

Most political concepts in the Finnish language are

therefore relatively young. Just a couple of words

like hallita (govern, dominate) and valta (power) are

very old German loan words. At least in the case of

valta (power), spoken Finnish had conserved old and

distinct features in comparison with the dominant

Swedish political culture of the mid-nineteenth

century.

In summary, the relatively short history of written

Finnish seems to enable quite a concise research

process and the usage of a relatively wide array of

sources.

The Project in Context

We are painfully aware of the fact that writing about

a small language area and a small political culture

cannot succeed in a vacuum. All of the conclusions

about "particular" Firmish fearures are valid only

after comparison with various languages and

cultures. We are certainly not able to do all of this

comparative work alone, if we are determined to

publish something in one lifetime The only solution

is a genuine international testing and comparison of

results. Again, we recognize a huge need for

commentary, in particular from the side of Swedish

scholars, but not forgetting other European

perspectives.

As a practical solution, we are planning an

international conference "Concepts in Motion. The

Conceptual History of Finnish Political Culture", that

will take place in Tampere in September of 1999. We

are not planning only to "translate" our articles on the

main concepts but to anempt to translate the "Finnish

imagery" into a clearly different language. Writing in

a foreign language can, therefore, be one method of

explicating the particular in one's own language.

10

German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity Jan Muller, All Souls College, Oxford.

M y project analyzes the response of German

intellectuals to uruficatlOn and pOSSible

shifts in public discourse precipitated by unification.

It focuses on the origins of concepts, arguments and

patterns of thought used in post-unification discourse,

tracing them back to different German ideological

traditions, and to their earlier use in the Federal

Republic. An examination of the response of German

intellectuals to unification seeks to contribute to an

understanding of German political culture and

particularly the nature of present-day public

discourse on German national identity, citizenship

and foreign policy .. But it also aims to illwninate the

formative experiences of major intellectuals in the

Federal Republic during the 1950s and 1960s, and

explains their public stances at the time of unification

in part through these fonnative experiences.

A plurality of methods is used to examine both the

systems of thought of particular authors and the way

in which shared concepts have been contested and

redefmed in a sometimes very self-conscious battle

over cultural hegemony. In particular, the more

language-based approach to political thought, as

advocated by Quentin Skinner, is fruitfully combined

with Begriffsgeschichte, i.e. the conceptual

historiography mainly associated with Reinhart

Koselleck. Moreover. it argued that generation

conflict (as so often in twentieth century German

history) has played a significant role in the

post-unification debates.

In the case of individual authors, the morphology of

their political thought, their contestation of key

concepts and the consistency of their argwnents are

analyzed. In that sense, I seek to combine what

Richard Rorty once referred to as 'historical' and

'rational reconstruction'. Overall, the pluralist

methodology outlined above is underpinned by a firm

belief that methods developed in Anglo-Saxon

intellectual history can be fruitfully applied to

continental debates.

The study is prefaced by an account of national

identity and the quest for legitimacy in the two

Germanies since 1945. Special emphasis is placed on

the 'public uses of history' and the fact that German

intellectuals feel compelled to change perceptions of

the past if they want to alter Germany's self

conceptualization in the present. Subsequently, the

responses of two major West German intellectuals,

Guenter Grass and Juergen Habermas, are analyzed

in detail. Grass and Habenmas projected themselves

powerfully into the public sphere and brought most

intellectual capital to bear on their interventions.

Then follows a more general categorization of

responses by the West German left. Left-wing

intellectuals, trapped in debates of the past, lacked

the framework and criteria for reacting to a radically

changed situation. By completely rejecting the

. concept and language of nation they arguably missed

yet another opportunity in German history to link the

"new" nation with the ideas of civil society and

popular sovereignty, which had played crucial roles

in the East German and East European revolutions.

The left, by turning in on itself and extensively

debating 'what was left', created a vacuum of ideas

which a self-declared 'New Right' of young

academics unsuccessfully sought to fill. Alongside a

conceptual anatomy of the 'New Right', I present the

influential public interventions by the literary scholar

and publicist Karl Heinz Bohrer, especially his

critique of the old Federal Republic as apolitical and

provincial, and the call for 'national identity' by the

erstwhile leftwing writer Martin Walser. J argue that

the first strategic attempt by the New Right to

self-consciously conquer 'cultural hegemony' has

failed, both on an ideological and an institutional

level. This failure can be largely explained by the

lack of ideological innovation and institutional

support, as well as its lack of appeal in what remains

a broadly liberal political culture, and fmally the

continuing institutional and ideological strength of

the intellectuals of the old Federal Republic .

Finally. changes in a number of crucial concepts are

identified. The choice of these concepts is determined

by the fact that they structure public discourse as a

whole and that all intellectuals can be situated on the

intellectual field according to their interpretation of

these concepts. Conclusions are then drawn about the

characteristics of the 'intellectual field' in Genmany,

about changes in public discourse over the last five

years and about the politics of nationhood and

identity in Germany.

French research on linguistic history of conceptualusagese Jacques Guilhaumou, Raymonde Monnier

(CNRSjENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud)

Methods of lexical and discursive . anal~sis set

forth in the LaboratolIe de lexlcometne et

textes politiques (ENSlFontenay-Saint-Cloud) are

hi in the generally related to « linguistic story

perspective of the lexical formal. Yet they never

presented range of results, in the field of political and

social concepts, like the German lexicons. We are

still concerned in such projects with the elaboration

of a Dictionnaire des usages sociopolitiques du

jran9ais contemporaiJJ, that takes actually two forms:

1. A I1thematic prototype" on the two last centuries

with the publication of a book, Les lennes de

l'imegalile e/ de i'egalile. Flux el reflux (J 8~ 20'

siecles).

2. Six volumes, and more than a thousand pages,

on the vocabulary of the French Revolution, with

a large I1Sattelzeit" if we may be allowed the

term 1770 1815.

Here we intend to distinguish the two projects. The

first one assumes the complex of usages as a

historical creation, but looks after a lexicographic

method that introduces linguistic aspects in a

Dictionary of concepts. The specificity of the

research led by Pierre Fiala mainly lies in a work on

corpus of texts (1740-1995), in a description of the

language usages in various discourses, after the

semi-quantitative methods of the Saint-Cloud

laboratory. It emphasizes on a diachronic description

of the linguistic and discursive qualities of some

characteristic tenms of political languages of our

time. The team undertook two years ago, as an

hypothesis, to work on the vocabulary of equality, a

concept and tenns that are at the core of actual

political and social debates. It has achieved into a

volume actually in press, on the terms of inequality

and equality. Ten monographs study the changes,

shifts and substitutions of words and their usages

from the eighteenth century to the present time. A

second volume, more turned to texts, will follow.

11

Such project, that stakes on plural discourses and

perspectives in limited fields of study, allows to work

on various cultural and linguistic uses and speech

acts, from the analysis of nonnative discourse to oral

corpus, but raises the problem about a synthesis

(tackled in the introduction) and the possibility of a

pertinent lexicon, The main point of the research

project remains that of an original lexical method; the

objective is to provide, on the same theme, a thematic

prototype, to be used either as a model of an article

for a Dictionary of concepts, or as the frame of a

Data base of social and political language usages.

The second project, which was undertaken before and

is closer to an issue, in a perspective of history of

discourses, is interested in the way language may

match to the context within the historical

understanding, So it is concerned with an history of

speech acts, a language investigation of texts and

contexts. The six volumes on revolutionary words are

not a lexicon of concepts, They describe the changing

contexts of the new political language (Sieyes'

"nouvelle langue polirique"), with great concern

about actions, options and operations of the

participants in the French Revolution, In this way, far

from a "domestictf research in linguistics, they

inquire into a taxonomy of concepts in an

henneneutic and pragmatic perspective.

conceptual Changes in Political Cultures Participants/ Addresses

Peter Baehr Dept. of Sociology

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St, John's New Foundland

Canada A I C 5S7


Gyorgy Bence Dept. of Philosophy, ELTE

Piarista koz I

Pf. 107

1364 Budapest

Hungary

TeL+361-2663769

Fax,+361-2664612

e-mail:[email protected]

12

Pimden Boer Dept, of Cultural Studies

University of Amsterdam

Spuistraat 210

1012 VT Amsterdam

The Netherlands

teL +31 -20 525 3503 (office)1

+3 1-30-2515426 (home)

Fax +31-20-525 3052

Hans Blom Dept, of Philosophy

Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam P,Q Box 1738

NL-300 DR Rotterdam

The Netherlands

fax: +3 1-10-212 0448


Martin J. Burke Dept. of History

Lehman College

City University of New York

250Bedford Park Boulevard West

Bronx, New Yark 10468

USA

e-mail:martinj@alpha,lehman,cuny,edu

Dario Castiglione Dept, of Politics

University of Exeter

Exeter

UK e-mail:[email protected]

Sandro Chignola Via S, Mattia 16

1-37128 Verona

Italy

fax: +45-913880

Janet Coleman Dept. of Government

London School of Economics and Political Science

Houghton Street

London WC2A 2AE

UK Fax: +44-171-83 1 1707

Pierre Fiala ENS. Fontanay Saint Cloud-laboratoire de

lexicologie

Le Parc. 92211

Saint Cloud Cedex

France e-mail:Fiala@ens-fc l. fr

Michael Freeden Mansfield College

Oxford OX I 3TF

UK e-mail: [email protected]

Daniel Gordon Dept. of History

University of Massachussets

Amherst MA 01003-3930

USA


Jacques Guilhaumou 29 Bd Rodocanachi

F-1300B, Marseille

France e-mail:[email protected]

Sisko Haikala University of Jyvaskylii

Dept. of History

PL 35

FIN -40351 Jyviiskylii

Finland


lain Hampsher-Monk Dept. of Politics

University of Exeter

Exeter


Birger Hermansson Dept. of political Science

University of Stockholm

S-1069 1 Stockholm

Sweden


Lucian Holscher Lehrstuhl fur Neuere Geschichte III

Fakultiit fur Geschichtswissenschaft

Riihr-universitiit Bochum

Universitiitsstr. 150

D-44780 Bochum

Germany

e-mail [email protected]

Istvan Hont King's College

Cambridge CB2 l5T

UK

Matti Hyvarinen RlSS

University of Tampere

pi 607 Tampere

Fin-33 101

Finland


fax: +358-3-21 56502

Jan Ifversen Center for Kulturforskning

Finlandsgade 26

DK-8200 Arhus

Denmark


Pasi I halainen Dept. of History

University of Jyviiskyla

PL35

Fin-4035 l Jyviiskylii

Finland


Mikhail Ilyin Journal "Polis"

Kolpachyi per 9a

Moscow / Leo Tolstoy Sir 7, 149

Moscow 11 902 1 (home)

Russia e-mail:[email protected]

13

Uffe Jacobsen Institute for Political Science

University of Copenhagen

Rosenborggade 15

DK-1130 Copenhagen

Denmark

tel: +45-35-323 404

fax: +45-35-323 399


Nikolai Kopossov Collegium Budapest

Szentharomsag ut.2

1014 Budapest

Hungary


Dana Khapayeva Collegium Budapest

Szentharomsag ut.2

1014 Budapest

Hungary

Rheinhart Koselleck Luisenslr .36

D-33602 Bielefeld

Germany

fax: +44-52 1-106 2966

Tina Lahogue Institute of Political Studies

University of Copenhagen

Rosenborggade 15

DK-1130 Copenhagen K

Denmark

e-mail: TI@ifs .ku.dk

Kia Lindroos 41 Milford Gardens

Edgware

Middlesex HAS 6EY


14

Aladan Madarasz Institute of Economics

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Budaiirsiut 45

Budapest

Hungary


Raymonde Monnier 49 Chemin de la Vallee aux Loups

92290 Chatenay Malabry

France e-mail: [email protected]

Jan Werner Miiller All Souls College

Oxford OXI 4AS


Kari Palonen Political Science

University of Jyvaskyla

PL35

Fin-4035 1 Jyvaskylii

Finland


fax: +358-14-603 101

Van Peng Dept. of Political Science

University of Stockholm

S-10691 Stockholm


Tuija Pulkkinen Kristiina Instituutti

PL29

Fin-00014 Helsingin yliopisto

Finland


Institut fur Philosophie,

Emst-Moritz-Amdt-Universitat

Kapaunenslr. 5-7

D-17487 Greifswald

Germany


lisa Rasanen University of Jyviiskylii

Political Science

Pl35

Fin-4035 I Jyviiskylii


Melvin Richter Dept of Political Science

Hunter College

Cuny

New York 1002 1

USA


Jose M, Rosales Dept. of Philosophy

Faculty of philosophy and literature

University of Malaga

E-29071 Malaga

Spain


Quentin Skinner Cambridge University

Christ's College

Cambridge CB2 3BU

UK fax: +44-1223-339 557

Patricia Spring borg Dept of Government

University of Sydney

Sydney, NSW 2006

Australia


Karin Tilmans Dept. of History


Spuistraat 134

1012 VB Amsterdam

The Netherlands

fax: +31-20-525 4433 or

+31-23.5258420


Balasz TrencsEmyi 1032 Zapor u.63 VIII. 46

Budapest

Hungary


Keith Tribe Dept. of Economics

Keele University

Keele

Staffordshire ST5 5BG

UK

Wyger Velema Dept. of History


Spuistraat 134

1012 VB Amsterdam

The Netherlands

fax: +31-20-525 4433

Bjorn Wittrock SCASSS

Gotaviigen 4

S-75236 Uppsala

Sweden

fax: +46-18-5211 09


15

Book announcements

History of Concepts: Comparative Approaches

lain Hampsber Monk, Karin Tilmans and Frank van

Vree, eds. (Amsterdam University Press 1998)

293 p. ISBN 90/5356/306n, paperback, f. 69,50.

Agenda

15-18 september 1999 seminar ItConcepts in Motion: The History of

Finnish Political Culture"

contact: Matti Hyvarinen

RlSS

University ofTampere

pI 607

Fin-3310 1

Finland

email: [email protected]

fax: +358-3-2156502

14-16 oktober 1999 conference 'IThe History of Concepts, Comparative

Approaches / Histoire des Concepts, Approches

Comparatives"

Ecole Normale de Saint-Cloud, Paris.

contact: Raymonde Monnier,

UMR Lexiometrie et textes politiques

ENS Fontenay - SI. Cloud

Grille d'honneur - Le Parc

9221 I S I. Cloud

e-mail: [email protected]. or

Jacques Guilhaumou

29 BD Rodocanachi

F -13008 Marseille

[email protected]

16

Call for copy Please send any information relevant for this

Newsletter to:

Karin Tilmans / Wyger Velema,

University of Amsterdam,

Department of History,

Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam,

The Netherlands.

Please enclose also a diskette (WordPerfect or Word)

or send your copy to: [email protected]

history of concepts newsletter 1

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