TY - BOOK ID - 70508114 TI - Essays in the History of Ideas AU - Lovejoy, Arthur O. AU - Johns Hopkins History of Ideas Club PY - 2019 SN - 1421432374 1421432390 1421432382 PB - Johns Hopkins University Press DB - UniCat KW - Literature. KW - Philosophy. KW - Mental philosophy KW - Humanities KW - Belles-lettres KW - Western literature (Western countries) KW - World literature KW - Philology KW - Authors KW - Authorship KW - Social & cultural history UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:70508114 AB - In the first essay of this collection, Lovejoy reflects on the nature, methods, and difficulties of the historiography of ideas. He maps out recurring phenomena in the history of ideas, which the essays illustrate. One phenomenon is the presence and influence of the same presuppositions or other operative "ideas" in very diverse provinces of thought and in different periods. Another is the role of semantic transitions and confusions, of shifts and of ambiguities in the meanings of terms, in the history of thought and taste. A third phenomenon is the internal tensions or waverings in the mind of almost every individual writer--sometimes discernible even in a single writing or on a single page--arising from conflicting ideas or incongruous propensities of feeling or taste to which the writer is susceptible. These essays do not contribute to metaphysical and epistemological questions; they are primarily historical. ER -