Through the Walls of Time: A Short Reflection on Writing Early Modern Intellectual History
This short piece takes a longstanding problem from the history of ideas, viz. the use of contemporary concepts in descriptions of past phenomena, and discusses its implications for broader intellectual history. Scholars have argued that being transparent about anachronism can be a first step towards...
| Published in: | Zutot |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2015
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| In: |
Zutot
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| Further subjects: | B
Bricolage
brokerage
history of ideas
Late Scholasticism
Menasseh ben Israel
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| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This short piece takes a longstanding problem from the history of ideas, viz. the use of contemporary concepts in descriptions of past phenomena, and discusses its implications for broader intellectual history. Scholars have argued that being transparent about anachronism can be a first step towards solving the issue. I would argue, however, that it may actually interfere with proper historical interpretation. As a case study, we shall explore what happens when a modern concept like ‘culture’ is applied to pre-modern intellectual processes. As the idea of cultural transfer is prominent in recent Jewish historiography, we will focus on exemplary early modern intermediary Menasseh ben Israel, and ask ourselves whether his supposed ‘brokerage’ (a notion taken from twentieth-century anthropology) brings us closer to understanding his work. As an alternative, I propose ‘bricolage,’ again a central analytical tool in modern anthropology but, as I hope to show, one with unexpected hermeneutical potential. |
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| ISSN: | 1875-0214 |
| Contains: | In: Zutot
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/18750214-12341269 |