"Published for the History of Ideas Club of the Johns Hopkins University"--Title page verso.

Originally published: New York : George Braziller, Inc., 1955.

Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE.

"Bibliography of the published writings of Arthur O. Lovejoy, 1898-1948."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The historiography of ideas -- The supposed primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on inequality -- Monboddo and Rousseau -- "Pride" in eighteenth century thought -- "Nature" as aesthetic norm -- The parallel of deism and classicism -- The Chinese origin of a romanticism -- The first Gothic revival and the return to nature -- Herder and the Enlightenment philosophy of history -- The meaning of "romantic" in early German romanticism -- Schiller and the genesis of German romanticism -- On the discrimination of romanticisms -- Coleridge and Kant's two worlds -- Milton and the paradox of the fortunate fall -- The communism of St. Ambrose -- "Nature" as norm in Tertullian.

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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.

Description based on print version record.