This is an electronic reprint of the original article. This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail. Author(s): Bizas, Konstantinos Title: Reinhart Koselleck’s work on crisis Year: 2016 Version: Please cite the original version: Bizas, K. (2016). Reinhart Koselleck’s work on crisis. French Journal for Media Research, 2016(5), 1-12. http://frenchjournalformediaresearch.com/lodel/docannexe/file/680/bizas_pdf.pdf All material supplied via JYX is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user. French Journal For Media Research – n° 5/2016 – ISSN 2264-4733 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 REINHART KOSELLECK’S WORK ON CRISIS Konstantinos Bizas Ph.D. Candidate in Political Thought & Conceptual History, University of Jyväskylä. (FIN). [email protected] Résumé Le travail célèbre de Reinhart Koselleck sur la crise marque des tendances du milieu intellectuel de son temps et a eu un effet important sur le paysage académique contemporain. Cet article analyse les choix de Koselleck sur l‟étude de la «crise» de l‟Antiquité au 20ème siècle et présente des conclusions méthodologiques, disciplinaires et socio-politiques. Mots-clés Koselleck, crise, critique, Begriffsgeschichte, concepts. Abstract Reinhart Koselleck‟s celebrated work on the concept of crisis highlights trends present in the intellectual context of its time and bears a significant impact in contemporary academic trends. The essay analyses Koselleck‟s choices in the study of “crisis” from Antiquity until the 20th century and draws conclusions on methodology, disciplinary trends and socio-political consequences of academic work. Keywords Koselleck, crisis, critique, Begriffsgeschichte, concepts 1 The paper is a refined version of an announcement at the International Conference “Narratives of the Crisis: Myths and Realities”, held in Thessaloniki in June 2015. The author would like to thank Prof. Kari Palonen for his advice on drafts of this essay. All views and possible errors rest solely on the author’s responsibility. 1 French Journal For Media Research – n° 5/2016 – ISSN 2264-4733 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION The paper presents the most popular work in contemporary academics on crisis. Crisis is a theme of particular interest for the study of present-day Greek politics, since the term is frequently used in order to designate the specificity of the current period vis-à-vis the preceding one. In particular, we refer to the work of Reinhart Koselleck (1923-2006),2 a German intellectual who approached “crisis” as a concept, following the steps of a specific German intellectual tradition. Our analysis begins with a brief review of the historical and intellectual background of Koselleck‟s work. Subsequently, we follow Koselleck‟s own chronological division of the object as found in his more detailed work, whereas a few more general conclusions are reserved for the end of the paper. HISTORICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND As far as the historical and intellectual background is concerned, it is worth pointing out that Koselleck has been remembered mostly for the gradual creation of the history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte), a field of study which has presently managed to gain international recognition.3 Our subject-matter in this paper consists of two texts. The first one is Koselleck‟s doctoral dissertation, originally presented in 1954 and published in a modified book version in 1959 under the title Critique and Crisis: A Study on the Pathogenesis of the Bourgeois World (Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der Bürgerlichen Welt).4 The book is a distinctively conservative critique of the Enlightenment5 which tries to combine the philosophical analysis of 17th and 18th century authors with the perspective of a more “concrete history” (which would be gradually substituted by “social history” - still in-the- making in West Germany at that time)6 and, aside from the numerous ongoing references to 2 For short overviews of Koselleck’s overall work until the 1990s see Tribe (1985) and Palonen (1997). More comprehensive approaches of Koselleck’s work can be found at Palonen (2004) and Olsen (2012). The latter also provides the first complete historical documentation of Koselleck’s life and writings. 3 Basic texts and volumes reflecting the international interest in the history of concepts (also commonly known as conceptual history) can be found in Richter (1995), Hampsher-Monk, Tilmans & van Free (1998), Castiglione & Hampsher-Monk (2001), and Sfoini (2006). In addition, the publication of the international journal Contributions to the History of Concepts since 2005 has provided a stable site for a constant flow of refined works on relevant topics. 4 The book version used in this essay is (Koselleck, 1988). Quite different readings of Koselleck’s book from the one maintained in this essay can be found in Haikala (1997) and Palonen (2004). It should be noted that Olsen’s analysis (2012, pp. 51-100) rests mainly on the earlier unpublished 1954 version of the dissertation. 5 Cf. Olsen’s (2012, pp. 15-17) attempt to classify Koselleck’s endeavours at that time as falling within the category of “liberal conservative” German intellectuals of the time or the similar category of “constitutional patriots” (“Verfassungspatrioten”), which takes place before Olsen’s reference to Koselleck’s actual basic professors and their impact on him (see below). In fact, Olsen later (p. 28) notes Koselleck’s rejection of Karl Jaspers on the basis of the latter’s “historical philosophy of liberalism”. In all cases, the fact that liberalism and constitutionalism are usually associated with the Enlightenment does not favour the use of such categories for Koselleck’s criticism of the latter in Kritik und Krise. Besides, at the end of his pages on “liberal conservatives” and gradually turning his attention specifically to Koselleck, Olsen suggests that “liberal conservatives” primarily aimed at a “liberalization” or more properly a “critical reuse of certain German traditions”, mainly referring to Schmitt and Heidegger (pp. 16-17). Furthermore, it should be noted that young Habermas wrote a review on the same book as well, characterizing it as a “’new conservative’ critique of the Enlightenment. (Olsen 2012, pp. 80-83). 6 In particular, Koselleck noted in his introduction (1988, pp. 7-8) that his method consisted in “a combination of analyses from the history of spirit *“geistesgeschichtliche Analysen”, inadequately translated as 2 French Journal For Media Research – n° 5/2016 – ISSN 2264-4733 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ “critique” and “crisis” throughout the text, it also includes an extensive footnote (1988, pp. 103-104) with Koselleck‟s more detailed findings up to that time on the histories of the two concepts. This footnote seems to have evolved into our second and most extensively examined source, i.e. Koselleck‟s celebrated article on “Krise” [“Crisis”] (2006), initially published in 1982 in a German dictionary (mainly) supervised by Koselleck (Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur Politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland [1972- 1997], usually abbreviated as GG), which is probably the best-known product of the history of concepts up to present (Palonen, 2006, Olsen, 2012, pp. 167-201). Both “history” (including what Friedrich Meinecke in 1936 will eventually popularize under the label of “historicism”7) and “crisis” have a long and characteristic tradition in German intellectual life (Iggers, 1983, Bambach, 1995, Beiser, 2011), which is mainly shaped by the shifts of experience in the relations of the Germanic world with the societies in their west. For example, such experience includes the late-18th century emphasis on the “historical” particularity of the Germanic world, the 19th century self-perception of Berlin academics as “state intellectuals” bearing the task to handle these relations, and Germany‟s defeat at the Great War, which seems to have brought “crisis” to the forefront of German academic vocabulary.8 Koselleck assimilated these debates through his well-known teachers, who are usually classified under the clearly conservative side of the political spectrum of their times: such philosophers as the legal theorist Carl Schmitt, who highlighted the “state of emergency” and the dependence from the sovereign‟s decision, (Schmitt, 1996/2006),9 Martin Heidegger, whose particular interests included laying emphasis on the genuine character of the mood of “anxiety” in the late 1920s (Heidegger, 2008),10 and who seems to have introduced his “analyses from the history of ideas” in the English translation+ and analyses of sociological conditions”. As the rest of the introduction and the book in general make clear, Koselleck’s main influence in the philosophical “history of spirit” is probably Karl Löwith (see below), whereas the sociological analyses Koselleck mainly had in mind at that time could have been those of Karl Mannheim, even though the latter’s references to intellectuals’