[lbo-talk] "History of Ideas" A footnote was ...Threat

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Nov 21 07:19:55 PST 2008


Philp Pilkington wrote:
>
> It
> also calls into question the whole notion that the history of ideas can be
> looked at ahistorical or synchronically/structurally as a series of
> definitive "breaks"...

[For another post: Scope and Limits of what we call "science." I would regard class struggle as _beyond_ the scope of anything that can usefully be labelled "science."]

"History of Ideas," crudely, doesn't exist. The phrase implies (and this implication is confirmed by most texts attempting such history) that ideas have a history of their own. They do not. As Miles points out, ideas are social practices, not separable from the other social practices within which one finds them.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list