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DEPROVINCIALIZING THE STUDY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS: A CRITIQUE[Note 1. I wish to thank a number of colleagues for ...]
Author(s) -
Specter Matthew
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
history and theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.169
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1468-2303
pISSN - 0018-2656
DOI - 10.1111/hith.10790
Subject(s) - contextualization , contextualism , materialism , epistemology , foundation (evidence) , sociology , historiography , historical materialism , philosophy , social science , political science , linguistics , law , politics , interpretation (philosophy) , marxist philosophy
Though the fourteen contributors to this volume bring varied perspectives on method, most striking is their common engagement with contextualist approaches. While some of the essays advocate a temporally and spatially extended, renewed history of ideas with debts to Arthur Lovejoy, and are critical of excessive contextualization, several either defend contextualism, or the culture concept, or offer a more robust materialist foundation for the history of thought and culture. This review focuses on the logic and metaphors used to criticize contextual methods and highlights problems with both the new history of ideas and the new materialist gestures.