International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2023

The Return of Conceptual History: New Methodological Developments in the History of Ideas in the Post-Skinnerian Era

(Abstract)

Liu Yang

Lovejoy’s history of ideas was the dominant research paradigm in the English-speaking world in the mid-20th century, emphasizing the autonomy and continuity of the “unit-ideas” in history. After the 1970s, conceptual history declined due to the rise of Quentin Skinner’s “historical contextualism.” In 2020, the Journal of the Philosophy of History published a special issue titled “Forum Debate on the Philosophy of Intellectual History and Conceptual Change,” reflecting this trend in the study of the history of ideas in two ways: the shift from “intended meaning” to “derived meaning,” and the attempts to reconstruct conceptual continuity. The second is the various attempts to reconstruct conceptual continuity. Despite the similarities with conceptual history, the theoretical basis of this special issue is fundamentally different from the former. At the same time, the “return of conceptual history” does not deny the rationality of context.