Abstract

This article explores the conditions of possibility of a global history of political concepts by elaborating on the theoretical core of Reinhart Koselleck’s original account of Begriffsgeschichte. Starting from the acknowledgment that a history of modern concepts, as Koselleck construes it, must necessarily assume the standpoint of the very same modern concept of “historyµ alongside the programmatic perspectivism that characterizes its understanding of historical truth, this contribution problematizes the scopes of Begriffgeschichte vis-à-vis the epochal depletion of the conceptual constellation that has determined the boundaries of modernity. Thinking of a global conceptual history requires a self-reflective inquiry into the historian’s theoretical standpoint and the ability to question and overcome these boundaries: this means in the first place dropping the Eurocentric or at least Atlantic vocation of modern concepts and meeting the challenge of de-colonizing history from the theoretical shadow of the modern State.