Article BREÑA Contributions (2021)

Tensions and Challenges
of Intellectual History in
Contemporary Latin America
ROBERTO BREÑA
ABSTRACT
This article provides an overview of some prominent aspects of intellectual
history as practiced today in Latin America, especially regarding concep-
tual history. It delves into the way this methodology arrived to the region
not long ago and discusses the way some of its practitioners combine it
with the history of political languages, often ignoring the profound differ-
ences between both approaches. Therefore, the text stresses some of the
most significant contrasts between them. In its last part, the article is crit-
ical of the purported “globality” of global intellectual history, an issue that
is inextricably linked with the pervasive use of the English language in the
field. Throughout, the text poses several of the challenges that lie ahead for
intellectual history in Latin America.
KEYWORDS
conceptual history, global intellectual history, history and theory, history
of political languages, Iberconceptos, intellectual history, Latin America,
Latin American historiography
Preamble
In the twentieth century, intellectual history in Latin America has an an-

cestry that include first-rate thinkers like Edmundo O’Gorman, José Luis
Romero, Arturo Ardao, Leopoldo Zea, and Arturo Andrés Roig. However,
this article centers its attention on certain aspects of contemporary intel-
lectual history and on how it is viewed and studied in Latin America today.
This text was first conceived several years ago; many friends and colleagues made
comments and criticisms to its previous versions. The final result, however, is in debt
with four persons: Margrit Pernau and especially Ilana Brown, editors of Contributions,
and the two anonymous reviewers of the journal. I want to dedicate this final version to
Charles Taylor, who will turn 90 very soon. He was my professor at McGill University
many years ago and has always been for me the best example of how intellectual brilliance
and personal humbleness can go together, smoothly and wisely, in the same person.
Contributions to the History of Concepts Volume 16, Issue 1, Summer 2021: 89–115
doi:10.3167/choc.2020.160105 © Berghahn Books
Roberto Breña
This “new intellectual history” comprises a completely different way of ap-

proaching the history of ideas when compared with the methods of the five
authors just mentioned. Two reasons why intellectual history has changed
so radically in the region during the last decades derive from a couple of
innovative approaches or methodologies: the first is conceptual history,
or Begriffsgeschichte, and the second is the history of political languages
(sometimes referred to as the contextual approach to the history of political
thought).1 As is well-known, the founder and most important representative
of the former is Reinhart Koselleck, and the most important exponent of the
latter is Quentin Skinner (along with J. G. A. Pocock, Skinner is the most
recognized member of the “Cambridge School”).
It is true that both methodologies arrived not too many years ago to
some universities and research institutions in Latin America. The main aca-
demics responsible for this “arrival” are Javier Fernández Sebastián and his
project Iberconceptos in the case of conceptual history, and Elías Palti in the
case of the history of political languages.2 I will devote a lot of attention to
Iberconceptos in what follows, but regarding Palti it should be mentioned
that he does not necessarily identify with the expression “history of political
languages.” In fact, he has said he distrusts academic labels and is comfort-
able with other ways of referring to his work.3 His caution in this regard have
to with the fact that Palti is equally critical of Koselleck’s dictionary (Ge-
schichtliche Grundbegriffe) and of Skinner’s approach to the history of ideas.
1. As we will see, each one of these two methodologies is clearly distinctive in funda-
mental aspects. However, they are related in several senses; some of the most important
derive from what is often considered their common origin: “the linguistic turn.” As very
often with all-encompassing expressions, at times it is difficult to know what exactly are
we talking about when this expression is used. We will come back to it a bit further, but as
Andrés Kozel stated in a brief article on contemporary Latin American thought, it is not
intellectually fruitful to adopt the mentality “everything was an error until the coming
of the last turn.” Andrés Kozel, “El estudio del pensamiento latinoamericano en nues-
tros días (Notas para una caracterización)” [The study of Latin American thought in our
days (Notes for a characterization)], Prismas (Revista de historia intelectual) 19 (2015):
163–172, here 172. This one and all the other translations in the article are mine.
2. See Elías Palti, El tiempo de la política (El siglo XIX reconsiderado) [The time of pol-
itics (The nineteenth century reconsidered)] (Avellaneda: Siglo XXI, 2007); especially
245–258. As the last book published by Palti in English clearly shows, he has gone beyond
the history of political languages and beyond conceptual history. The theoretical sources
and the methodologies he uses are wide ranging, and he does not explicitly adhere to any
one in particular (in fact, he is critical of almost all of them). See Elías Palti, “Introduc-
tion,” in An Archaeology of the Political (Regimes of Power from the Seventeenth Century to
the Present) (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).
3. Despite Palti’s eclecticism, I think El tiempo de la política can be inscribed within the
history of political languages without much hesitation.
90 contributions to the history of concepts

Tensions and Challenges of Intellectual History in Contemporary Latin America
Conceptual history and the history of political languages are the two
most important methodologies of intellectual history that are discussed at
present in Latin America. To review how they arrived to the region, display
some of the tensions between them, and assess their status at this moment
is evidently only a part of the story of contemporary Latin American intel-
lectual history, which, as I will suggest in the next paragraph, goes much
further. However, it is an important part of it because they are the most
sophisticated approaches in methodological terms and also because of the
fruits they have given during the last decades in Western academia in gen-
eral. Besides, considering the academic quality of the numerous scholars in
Latin America that have devoted attention to them in the last ten years or
so and the attention it gets at present from a considerable number of young
scholars, it is fair to say that both methodologies already have a certain aca-
demic weight in the region and that its potential will be even more percep-
tible in the coming years.
One of the main reasons why these two approaches, important as they
are from a methodological perspective, are just part of the story of Latin
American intellectual history has to do with the fact that intellectual his-
tory is a vast field and one that has never had concrete boundaries. This ap-
plies to the whole Western world, but this indeterminacy maybe even more
profound in Latin America. This tendency is consciously or unconsciously
promoted by the fact that in the region there is a recurring tendency to over-
praise the essay and its alleged potential in intellectual terms, to emphasize
and commend the political character of Latin American thought and writ-
ing, and, related to both aspects, a constant leaning to look to the past and
in a certain sense bask in it; as a consequence, the present and the future are
ignored or at least given a parenthetical character.4
4. In his brief text “Ideas para un programa de historia intelectual” (Ideas for a pro-
gram of intellectual history), Carlos Altamirano starts with the notion of how indefinite
or uncertain intellectual history is regarding its language, its methods, its objects, its in-
terpretations, and its priorities. It seems revealing to me that a text that was written as a
program of intellectual history for contemporary Latin America ends up talking about
“literature of ideas” in the region, about the political character that defined this literature,
about the malleability of the essay form, about the eminently self-searching character
of the writings of Latin American thinkers and men of letters until recently and, finally,
about the persistence, up to the moment when Altamirano wrote this text, of the so-
cio-political essay, that completely dominated intellectual life in the region during almost
the whole nineteenth century. Carlos Altamirano, “Ideas para un programa de historia
intelectual” [Ideas for a program of intellectual history], in Para un programa de historia
intelectual y otros ensayos [For a program of intellectual history and other essays] (Buenos
Aires: Siglo XXI Editores, 2005), 13–24.
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Roberto Breña
The indeterminacy of intellectual history is an aspect that has long been

pointed out by Latin American academics.5 Considering the dossier that
Prismas devoted to the “discipline” in 2015, it is not gaining in definition
with the passage of time, quite the opposite I would say.6 The ultimate rea-
son for this “lack of boundaries” (if I may phrase it this way) is not hard to
find, for, as Adrián Gorelik states in the presentation of the dossier in ques-
tion, “intellectual history” in the region comprises not only the linguistic
and symbolic dimension of social life but also the understanding of cultural
elites, ideas, intellectuals, and culture in general, “always in combination
with political life.” Besides, following Gorelik, intellectuals should be under-
stood in a very broad sense. Finally, in his perspective, intellectual history
should not lose contact with the material supports or formats that enable
its practices. To sum up, intellectual life expresses itself through languages,
of course, but these languages have to be studied and understood through
their material, historic, social, political, and institutional conditions. This is
why, Gorelik concludes, intellectual history is not so much a discipline as a
“seismic zone where disciplinary tectonic plaques converge and collide with
each other” (citing, as he does, Anthony Grafton).7 As can be inferred from
this characterization of intellectual history, which seems to me as acceptable
or debatable as any other, the table is set for the indeterminacy of the field.
5. See, for example, Rafael Rojas, “Venturas y amenazas de un campo” [Ventures and
dangers of a field], Prismas (Revista de historia intelectual) 11 (2007): 203–206, and Mara
Polgovsky, “La historia intelectual latinoamericana en la era del giro lingüístico” [Intel-
lectual history in the age of the linguistic turn], Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, October
2010, https://doi.org/10.4000/nuevomundo.60207.
6. Prismas is the most important review of intellectual history that exists in Latin
America. The dossier alluded to is “La historia intelectual hoy: itinerarios latinoameri-
canos y diálogos transatlánticos” [Intellectual history today: Latin American itineraries
and transatlantic dialogues], Prismas (Revista de historia intelectual) 19 (2015): 149–182.
It contains contributions by André Botelho, Andrés Kozel, and Jorge Myers. Kozel’s ar-
ticle (see note 1) suggests that intellectual history is just one parcel of Latin American
thought. A parcel that does not have a fluid dialogue with the other three “constellations”
that the author identifies: history of ideas, history of philosophical thought (in anticolo-
nial mode), and history of critical thought (in Marxist mode). A recent article that gives
a good idea of the Latin American diversity of groups, networks, institutions, and ap-
proaches regarding intellectual history understood in a broad sense is Eduardo Devés,
“Los estudios de las ideas y las intelectualidades en América Latina a inicios del XXI:
cartografía, trazos característicos y evaluación” [The studies of ideas and intellectualities
in Latin America at the beginning of the twenty-first century: Cartography, characteristic
lines and evaluation], Wirapuru 1 (2020): 100–119. This is a brand-new electronic review
devoted to the history of ideas in Latin America. Its director is Andrés Kozel and its vice
director is Fabricio Pereira Da Silva.
7. Adrián Gorelik, Presentación to “La historia intelectual hoy: itinerarios latinoameri-
canos y diálogos transatlánticos”: 149–150, here 150.

There are four main reasons why, in my view, conceptual history and
the history of political languages should be welcomed by Latin American
historians. The first reason is because Latin American historiography has
traditionally been rather careless in its use of political concepts and political
categories. Since the origin of the different social sciences and humanities as
part of university programs in the twentieth century (an origin that varies a
lot from one Latin American country to the other), the social sciences and
the humanities in the region were born under a very tense and very difficult
political situation. During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, when those origins
can be chronologically situated in some of the most important countries in
the region, circumstances did not lend themselves to neutral positions in
political and social life. I know this is almost always the case, but it can be
argued that circumstances were particularly confrontational when it came to
some social sciences and the humanities as they began to take shape during
those decades in Latin American universities.
The second reason, vague as it inevitably is, refers to the secular poverty
and inequalities that characterize the vast majority of Latin American soci-
eties. This long-standing and pervasive social situation brought with it the
concomitant tendency of many social scientists of the region to implicate
themselves academically in one way or another in order to have some social
effect or social impact. Inevitably, this tendency had consequences over the
categories, concepts and methodologies chosen by many academics of the
region to explain societies, social life, and history in general. The sweeping
hold that Marxism had in Latin American academia from the 1950s to the
1980s can be seen under this light. A hold that, evidently, was enormously
potentiated by the Cuban Revolution. The political demise of Marxism that
took place from 1989 onward in the whole world has changed this situation
profoundly; however, in Latin America there are still important universities
that hold on to what could be considered a markedly ideological perspective
(not only from the left, especially in some private universities). This per-
spective entails the use and application of the kind of categories that the two
methodologies in question could contribute to reduce, refine or distill.
Third, these new methodologies should be welcomed in Latin America
because for political historians of the region “presentism” or “anachronism”
has been a constant since history became an academic discipline in the uni-
versities of the region. This subordination of history to present needs and
present interests is directly linked with the instrumental use of categories
within the social sciences and the humanities for mainly ideological or polit-
ical motives mentioned in the previous point.
Finally, I think both methodologies, and intellectual history in general,
should be well-received because there is a widespread reluctance among
Latin American historians to give “theory” an important role in the practice
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Roberto Breña
of their craft. In general, they tend to be skeptical regarding the benefits that
can be obtained from the application of theoretical approaches and more or
less sophisticated methodologies to their daily work. In my view, the vast
majority of Latin American historians do not feel at home with theoretical
developments or with questioning what they do and how they do it, or with
the explicit recognition of the larger frameworks within which they work.
This attitude very often implies a skeptical stance toward approaches con-
sidered too theoretical and, to that extent, distant from history proper (or
narrowly defined).
Needless to add, the four elements that I have mentioned could be de-
veloped and nuanced and, of course, exceptions to each can be found.8 As
presented, however, I think they are useful for the limited purposes of this
article.
The “history of ideas” has gone through transformations of such mag-
nitude during the last half-century in the Western academic world that for
some time now the expression has been increasingly replaced by “intellec-
tual history.” No doubt that the “history of ideas” is still practiced and will
continue to be practiced in Western academia; in fact, at present there is a
discernible tendency to recuperate it or at least be critical of certain aspects
of Skinner’s contextual approach.9 However, there is no denying that con-
ceptual history and the history of political languages have radically trans-
formed intellectual history; some would even go as far as saying that with
them the traditional history of ideas has lost its raison d’être. In any case,
for several decades in Latin American academia neither the history of ideas
nor intellectual history received anything near the attention they received in
some of the best universities of the rest of the Western world. This situation
has changed since approximately the beginning of the twenty-first century,
but especially during the last decade or so. How did this happen and what are
some of the tensions that characterize it?
In the following section, this article adopts a critical stance toward some
aspects of conceptual history as it has arrived and has been adopted by some
Latin American academics during the last years. In the third section, it pre-
8. Along with some others aspects that are not relevant here, I succinctly reviewed
these elements and contextualize them within some of the most important facets of the
radical transformation that Western historiography has experienced in the last decades,
in Roberto Breña, “Pretensiones y límites de la historia (La historiografía contemporánea
y las revoluciones hispánicas)” [Pretensions and limits of history (Contemporary his-
toriography and the Hispanic revolutions)], Prismas (Revista de historia intelectual) 13
(2009): 283–294.
9. See, for example, the chapters by Darrin M. McMahon and Peter E. Gordon, in Dar-
rin M. McMahon and Samuel Moyn, eds., Rethinking Modern European Intellectual His-
tory (New York: OUP, 2014); 13–31 and 32–55, respectively.

sents some of the predicaments that, from my perspective, the project Iber-
conceptos entails for the Latin American academic world. The fourth section
proceeds to give an overview of what is going on today in the region in the
field of intellectual history, understood mainly with the connotations that I
privilege in this article. Finally, I proceed to some concluding comments and
a sort of recapitulation.
My aim in this article is manifold: to clearly distinguish between con-
ceptual history and the history of political languages (a set of differences
that the way conceptual history has been conveyed in the region tends to
obscure); to heighten the attention of Latin American historians, political
scientists, and academics in general toward intellectual history; to give an
idea of what is taking place in some aspects of the field in the region today,
and, lastly, to foster a debate within Latin American academia about a dis-
cipline that does not have clear boundaries and, very probably, never will.
Not that these boundaries are mandatory in any sense, mainly because their
existence would not imply, by itself, an intellectual attainment. However, if
the absence of boundaries or their lack of definition will persist (as has been
suggested), this does not mean that a debate on the causes, nature, and con-
sequences of this persistence is not worth having.
Conceptual History and the History of

Political Languages: A Problematic Marriage
Since conceptual history and the history of political languages began to be

known and gradually practiced in Latin America, there is a certain confusion
between both methodologies. There are evident affinities between them:
for example, their utmost care for language; their concern for the linguistic-
historic context of the author, work, or concept under study; the central
place the usage of terms plays in both theories; and, as a corollary of the
elements mentioned, the ways they have superseded some of the central as-
pects of the traditional way of approaching the history of ideas. In particu-
lar, how they have created a new socio-historical semantics and put aside
“great authors,” “great texts,” and anything that may be considered “peren-
nial ideas.” Regarding this last aspect, the old habit of some Latin American
intellectual historians of looking for and (always) finding “influences” (com-
ing mainly from England, the United States, and/or France) will surely die
hard. Not that authors, books, and theories coming from these three coun-
tries have not been important in the intellectual history of Latin America.
Nobody doubts that they have strongly influenced the development of ideas
in the region. However, the new methodologies necessarily imply a much
more nuanced and much more complex way of looking at “influences”; in
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Roberto Breña
this regard, it is no wonder the term is disappearing from the vocabulary of

contemporary intellectual history.
Beyond the general affinities mentioned in the last paragraph between
conceptual history and the history of political languages, there are also sig-
nificant differences between them. Some of these differences are of such
magnitude, that in certain aspects the approaches in question may be con-
sidered at odds with each other. Therefore, their compatibility is fraught
with obstacles and strains that may prove to be too many and too deep for a
real conciliation to be achieved.
It is true that no methodology is entirely comprehensive or is ever fol-
lowed in its entirety (not even by its proponents). Methodologies are avail-
able for every academic to use when they are useful and when they improve
in one way or another the historian’s work. Academics continually combine
methodologies depending on their hypotheses and their objectives. This
is a truism. However, my point here is that it is important to know each
methodology individually, before presenting them as a “natural” combina-
tion or mixture, as has been done with conceptual history and the history
of political languages in Latin America through the project Iberconceptos.10
As mentioned, this project was directed by Javier Fernández Sebastián, a
highly reputed and widely recognized Spanish intellectual historian. Doz-
ens of Latin American academics participated in it (myself included in its
first phase) and many more feel attracted to it at present. More importantly,
several of them have continued their research on intellectual history once
the two phases of that project were finished several years ago and, as I write,
they are teaching hundreds of students in intellectual history.
The intrinsic value of Iberconceptos, its academic quality and the rea-
sons just mentioned explain the place given to this project in this overview
of the present situation of intellectual history in Latin America. But again,
as I expressed at the beginning of this article, intellectual history is a vast
field and conceptual history is just a parcel of it (more so Iberconceptos con-
sidered in isolation). Besides, readers should not forget that we are dealing
here with the “reception” of methodologies and, therefore, appropriations,
alterations, distortions, and contributions are natural consequences. If this
is undeniable, it seems to me equally undeniable that a debate about how
this reception has taken place in Latin America is in order from an academic
perspective.
10. In the comparative exercise that follows I will concentrate my attention on Quentin
Skinner’s methodology. This entails a simplification to the extent that I will ignore the
differences between his approach and that of J. G. A. Pocock. These differences would
be enough to show why the label “Cambridge School” is not as appropriate as some of its
users suggest. In any case, this label is widely accepted nowadays and that is why I employ
it throughout this article without quotation marks.

The affinities between Koselleck’s and Skinner’s intellectual enterprises,

important as they are, may take us too far regarding the extent to which they
might coincide. In fact, as noted earlier, it is increasingly common to treat
them as two currents of a single conceptual history or as “variants” or “va-
rieties” of the history of concepts.11 As can be inferred from the previous
pages and from the arguments I will present in the rest of this article, I do
not agree with this position. One thing is to “freely admit the convenience
of combining both approaches,” as Fernández Sebastián claims, and another
one is to merge and dissolve the history of political languages (or contex-
tual approach, or Cambridge School methodology) into Begriffsgeschichte.12
Fernández Sebastián recognizes the efforts of authors like Melvin Richter
and Kari Palonen to establish communication between both methodologies
and commends their success in blurring the borders between them and in
“disarm[ing] the more obstinate guardians of the respective orthodoxies.”13
In my view, this is not a matter of “orthodoxies” and the purported “ob-
stinate guardians” are not guardians in any sense. What these academics are
doing is being critical of a blending that very often is not warranted in ac-
ademic terms and is not as simple or straightforward as the authors men-
tioned above have proposed. From my perspective, these academics have
good arguments on their side or, in other words, the amalgamation between
Begriffsgeschichte and the School of Cambridge is more difficult and more
needed of preventions and nuances than what Fernández Sebastián, Rich-
ter, or Palonen often transmit to their readers and, therefore, it should be
debated, and, under certain conditions or in certain cases, rejected. In this
regard, I think the words Skinner expressed long ago about conceptual his-
tory should be taken at face value: “I remain unrepentant in my belief that
there can be no histories of concepts as such; there can only be histories of
11. For three examples of this position, see Javier Fernández Sebastián, “Introduction,”
Political Concepts and Time (New Approaches to Conceptual History), ed. Javier Fernán-
dez Sebastián (Santander: McGraw Hill/Cantabria University Press, 2011), 1–16; Melvin
Richter, “Reconstructing the History of Political Languages: Pocock, Skinner and the
Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe,” History and Theory 29, no. 1 (1990): 38–70; and finally, Kari
Palonen, “The History of Concepts as a Style of Political Theorizing,” European Journal
of Political Theory 1, (2002): 91–106.
12. Fernández Sebastián, “Introduction,” 5.
13. Ibid. In another text, he talks about “the most obdurate guardians of the respective
essences.” “Conceptos políticos, tiempo y modernidad: Actualidad de la historia con-
ceptual” [Political concepts, time, and modernity: Conceptual history today], in Javier
Fernández Sebastián and Gonzalo Capellán de Miguel, eds., Conceptos políticos, tiempo e
historia (Nuevos enfoques de historia conceptual) [Political Concepts and Time (New Ap-
proaches to Conceptual History)] (Santander: Universidad de Cantabria/McGraw Hill,
2013): XXV.
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Roberto Breña
their uses in argument.”14 It is true that several years later Skinner changed
this radical position vis-à-vis Koselleck’s work, but the conclusion that he ar-
rived to regarding this issue is less of a backpedal than what some advocates
of the “conciliation thesis” have contended. Textually, what Skinner said on
that occasion was: “the two programmes do not strike me as incompatible,
and I hope that both of them will continue to flourish as they deserve.”15
When Skinner was asked by Fernández Sebastián about the possibil-
ity of combining his methodology with Begriffsgeschichte, the author of
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought replied with these words: “I
feel cautious about saying anything about the relations between my work
and that of Koselleck, as I have come to see this is a minefield.”16 He then
proceeds to mention several aspects of Koselleck’s work with which he pro-
foundly disagrees. To begin with, he thinks that Koselleck’s project centers
his attention on words, not on concepts; an approach that, in Skinner’s view,
excludes many authors, only because they did not use a particular term. He
then goes on to say that Koselleck centered his attention too much on the
time of the French Revolution. Finally, for Skinner the Geschichtliche Grund-
begriffe (GG) has a profoundly unhistorical character because the majority of
the entries are lists of meanings and alleged changes of meanings. His con-
clusion in this respect is that the properly historical task should be “that of
studying not the histories of words but the history of the uses to which these
words were put at different times in argument.”17
If we turn to Koselleck’s opinion about Skinner’s oeuvre, the efforts
to emphasize the affinities between Begriffsgeschichte and the Cambridge
School also appears to me to be partially misplaced. In an interview that
Koselleck gave to Fernández Sebastián and Juan Francisco Fuentes in 2005,
he is very clear in his assessment of Skinner’s methodology. The German
intellectual historian is very critical of the normative concerns that, from his
perspective, pervade the whole of Skinner’s work and concludes: “This is
14. Quentin Skinner, “A Reply to My Critics,” in Meaning and Context (Quentin Skinner
and his Critics), ed. James Tully (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 232–288, here 283.
15. Quentin Skinner, “Retrospect: Studying Rhetoric and Conceptual Change,” in Vi-
sions of Politics (vol. I: Regarding Method) (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 187. It is true that
in this chapter Skinner accepts that “the very idea of writing conceptual histories” is not
in doubt (178), but as it becomes evident on 180–182, he is adamant regarding several
profound differences between his approach and Koselleck’s.
16. Javier Fernández Sebastián, “Intellectual History, Liberty and Republicanism: An
Interview with Quentin Skinner,” Contributions to the History of Concepts 1, no. 3 (2007):
103-123, here 114. By the way, coming back to what I said above about methodologies,
the two volumes that constitute The Foundations of Modern Political Thought show that
not even the proponents of a certain methodology can follow it exactly in their own work.
17. Ibid., 115.

why Skinner strikes me as a conventional historian concerned with a load of

normative concepts.”18
What are some of the main differences between Begriffsgeschichte and
the School of Cambridge as represented by Skinner’s work? As already
noted, a lot has been written regarding their common ancestry in the “lin-
guistic turn.” However, this common origin is clearly insufficient if the ob-
jective is to blend both methodologies. In the first place, we must remember
that each approach originated in radically different national and political ex-
periences and within very different intellectual contexts. Begriffsgeschichte
developed from the well-established German traditions of philology, herme-
neutics, medieval history, and historiography. Skinner’s methodology, for its
part, has one of its biggest intellectual debts with the ideas on language of
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and the speech acts the-
ory of J. L. Austin. Second, to the extent that the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe
tries to show how some basic concepts changed and took a distinctive form
during the period 1750–1850, Begriffsgeschichte has centered its attention
on this hundred-year period and has given the Industrial Revolution, the
French Revolution, and the first half of the nineteenth century a privileged
position. One of the main hypotheses and guidelines of the GG is that the
changes of the concepts that indicate the birth of the modern world in what
we call today “Germany” took place during the aforementioned period. This
has nothing to do with the research project of the Cambridge School. In fact,
Skinner and Pocock have rarely taken their research beyond the last part of
the eighteenth century.
Third, Begriffsgeschichte was conceived as an approach to social history,
as a sophisticated linguistic analysis with the goal of achieving a better un-
derstanding of the social world. In contrast, it can be said that the aim of the
Cambridge School is the history of political thought, particularly, to under-
stand the sinuous development of certain vocabularies “either as an object
of historical investigation in its own right, or as constitutive of political real-
ity, and not a factor in or relative to a reality existing independently of it.”19
Fourth, Begriffsgeschichte seeks to establish a diachronic dimension along
and within the changes observable in particular distinct concepts “by ex-
tracting these from their synchronic contexts and then only subsequently re-
18. Javier Fernández Sebastián and Juan Francisco Fuentes, “Conceptual History,
Memory and Identity: An Interview with Reinhart Koselleck,” Contributions to the His-
tory of Concepts 2, no. 1 (2006): 99–127, here 109.
19. Iain Hampsher-Monk, “Speech Acts, Languages or Conceptual History?,” in His-
tory of Concepts: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Iain Hampsher-Monk, Karin Tilmans, and
Frank Van Vree (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998): 37–50, here 48 (italics
in the original).
summer 2021 99
Roberto Breña
assemble these discrete strands in order to recreate a totality.”20 In contrast,

Skinner and Pocock see concepts as taking their meanings from specific con-
texts of discourse. For them, diachronic changes occur within larger units
(languages, discourses or “ideologies,” as Skinner sometimes calls them).
Finally, as Ian Hampsher-Monk has remarked, Koselleck tends to see his-
tory as a field of impersonal forces “in which humans are almost passive ve-
hicles.”21 Skinner, for his part, considers linguistic changes to be the actions
of agents that use words and concepts with very concrete intentions. From
Hampsher-Monk’s perspective and although he accepts that it is a matter
for dispute, it can be argued that while for Koselleck conceptual change is a
process, for Skinner, history is mainly the account of a series of agent’s acts.
I know the preceding list is well-known by the experts in the field and
to that extent it may be considered perfunctory. However, the four elements
briefly considered here may suffice for some Latin American scholars to
adopt a more cautious attitude regarding the possibility of a stable and pro-
ductive combination between Begriffsgeschichte and the Cambridge School.
I conclude this section by saying that, although the debate will go on about
the possibilities (or impossibilities) of this fusion and the purported benefits
we get from it, at this point in time I agree with Martin van Gelderen when
he writes: “It is as yet unclear how the methodological and epistemologi-
cal horizons of conceptual history and the history of political languages can
fuse.”22
Iberconceptos and Its Reception in Latin America:

Some Academic Precautions
The preceding section serves as an introduction to some of the elements

that, in my view, Latin American historians should pay attention to in order
for conceptual history to be understood in the region in a distinctive way. In
this regard, it seems important to avoid underlining at every turn the simil-
itudes between Begriffsgeschichte and the School of Cambridge or, maybe
20. Ibid. James Schmidt finds this approach to be wanting from a specifically historical
perspective: “If the ultimate goal of Begriffsgeschichte is the testing of hypotheses about
the general development of concepts across the period 1750–1850, then it is hard to see
how this undertaking is historical at all.” James Schmidt, “How Historical is Begriffsge-
schichte?” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science As-
sociation, 3 September 1998), http://open.bu.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2144/3880/
schmidt_hei25_preprint.pdf?sequence=2 (italics in the original).
21. Hampsher-Monk, “Speech Acts, Languages or Conceptual History?,” 49.
22. Martin van Gelderen, “Between Cambridge and Heidelberg. Concepts, Languages
and Images in Intellectual History,” in Hampsher-Monk, Tilmans and Van Vree, History
of Concepts, 227–238, here 233.

even worse, to take those similitudes for granted, as is often the case with
some of Iberconceptos practitioners. This insistence tends to blur the differ-
ences between both methodologies and may contribute to spreading some
misunderstandings regarding the nature, methods, and objectives of each
one. More so if we are dealing with a milieu (the Latin American academia)
that, in general terms, has limited experience with methodologies of this
kind. Of course, conceptual history and the history of political languages
will develop separately in some of the best universities of Latin America and
some of their practitioners are able to differentiate the two methodologies
without much or any difficulty. From my perspective, however, this fact
does not diminish the importance of the clarifying effort intended here.
In what follows, I will mention five aspects that I think should be taken
into consideration regarding conceptual history in Latin America. The role
that some historians of the region are playing at present as diffusors of this
methodology is considerable. For that same reason, I think it is important to
have in mind these five elements. These aspects are not that important when
considered in isolation. But they are when considered as a whole and when
presented in relationship with academic life in Latin America and with the
way intellectual history, as it has been circumscribed in this article, is devel-
oping in the region at present.
(1) Regardless of what could be inferred from what some exponents of
conceptual history have written, one of the heuristic clues of conceptual his-
tory does not reside in the concepts themselves, but in the relation between
concepts and circumstances (or “experience” or “reality” or “society”). In
other words, history cannot be reduced to its linguistic form. The increasing
numbers of readers interested in conceptual history in Latin America should
always bear in mind the permanent and inevitable tension between concepts
and history (or, maybe even more concretely, social history).23 Concepts
should not be understood, in any sense, as an alternative “reality.” Authors
like Joaquín Abellán and Hans Erich Bödeker have insisted on this point for
many years. Since its first article on the subject, published thirty years ago,
Abellán has been adamant that the object of Begriffsgeschichte is not concepts
in themselves but their convergence with history. Between concepts and re-
ality there is no identity, because reality cannot be dissolved in discourse,
and also because there is no direct correspondence between words and real-
ity. Abellán reminds us that for Koselleck if every act of speech is an action,
23. In Spanish, a brief and clear text by Koselleck that reflects the various complexities
of the relationship between conceptual history and social history is Reinhart Koselleck,
“Historia social e historia de los conceptos,” [Social history and history of concepts] in
Historia de conceptos (Estudios sobre semántica y pragmática del lenguaje político y social)
[History of Concepts (Studies on semantics and pragmatics of political and social lan-
guage] (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2012), 9–26.
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Roberto Breña
not every fact is an act of speech.24 In this sense, Bödeker is also as clear as he
can be: “An analytical separation between language and history is, accord-
ingly, a prerequisite for writing Begriffsgeschichte as well as history more gen-
erally . . . Begriffsgeschichte emphatically insists that we must not reduce this
historical reality to its linguistic form.”25 Even if in a certain sense there can
be no historical or social reality without language, history and language are
not identical and they should not be viewed or treated as such. Again, this
may sound like a truism to some experts in the field, but not to the hundreds
of new readers or students of conceptual history in Latin America.26 To sum
up this first element in Koselleck’s own words, Begriffsgeschichte should not
be considered another of the “contemporary modern theories that reduce
reality to language and nothing else.”27
(2) It is important not to commensurate conceptual history with
Koselleck’s GG or with Fernández Sebastiáns’s two dictionaries on the
Ibero-American world. In its first phase, this ambitious project gathered
24. See Joaquín Abellán, “Historia de los conceptos (Begriffsgeschichte) e historia so-
cial(A propósito del Diccionario Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe)” [History of concepts (Be-
griffsgeschichte) and social history: On the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe], in La historia
social en España [Social history in Spain], ed. Santiago Castillo (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1991),
47–63; and Joaquín Abellán, “En torno al objeto de la ‘Historia de los conceptos’ de Rein-
hart Koselleck” [On the object of the “History of Concepts” of Reinhart Koselleck], in El
giro contextual (Cinco ensayos de Quentin Skinner y seis comentarios) [The contextual turn
(Five essays by Quentin Skinner and six commentaries)], ed. Enrique Bocardo Crespo
(Madrid: Tecnos, 2007): 215–248.
25. Hans Erich Bödeker, “Begriffsgeschichte as the History of Theory. The History of
Theory as Begriffsgeschichte: An Essay,” in Fernández Sebastián, Political Concepts and
Time, 19–44, here 28.
26. I disagree with the way Fernández Sebastián and Juan Francisco Fuentes conceive
the relationship between language/ideas and social reality, institutions, and practices
in Javier Fernández Sebastián and Juan Francisco Fuentes, “Introduction,” Diccionario
político y social del s. XIX español [Political and social dictionary of the Spanish nine-
teenth century] (Madrid: Alianza Editorial 2002), see, for example, 24, 25, 30 and 32. My
arguments are presented in: Roberto Breña, “Las conmemoraciones de los bicentenarios
y el liberalismo hispánico: ¿historia intelectual o historia intelectualizada?” [The com-
memorations of the bicentennials and Hispanic liberalism: intellectual or intellectualized
history?], Ayer 69, no. 1 (2008): 189–219, and Roberto Breña, “El liberalismo (hispánico)
como categoría de análisis histórico; algunas tensiones con la historia de los conceptos
y con la historia de los lenguajes políticos” [Hispanic liberalism as a category of histori-
cal analysis; Some tensions with the history of concepts and the history of political lan-
guages], in Mito y realidad de la ‘cultura política latinoamericana’ (Debates en Iberoideas)
[Myth and Reality of the Latin American political culture], ed. Elías Palti (Buenos Aires:
Prometeo Libros, 2010): 157–168.
27. Reinhart Koselleck, “On the History of Concepts and the Concept of History,” in
Disseminating German Tradition: The Thyssen Lectures, ed. Dan Diner and Moshe Zim-
mermman (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2009), 29–49, here 34.

seventy-five researchers from nine countries: Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Ar-

gentina, Perú, Venezuela, Brazil, Spain, and Portugal, who covered ten dif-
ferent voices (“América/americano,” “ciudadano/vecino,” “Constitución,”
“federación/federalismo,” “Historia,” “liberal/liberalismo,” “nación,” “opi-
nión pública,” “pueblo/pueblos” and “república/republicanismo”). This
first result was published in 2009.28 In its second phase, the number of re-
searchers and countries involved in the project increased (the Caribbean,
Central America, and Uruguay were added) and some of the contributors
changed. The new edition of the Diccionario was published five years later,
in 2014, and covered another ten voices (“civilización,” “democracia,” “Es-
tado,” “independencia,” “libertad,” “orden,” “partido,” “patria,” “revolución”
and “soberanía”).29 This edition, in contrast with the first, consists of ten sep-
arate volumes (each one devoted to a single voice). This second dictionary is
much larger than the first one. Another difference is that each one of the ten
volumes has a different editor (or editors in one case), who are the authors
of the introductory essays of each volume. The chronology also changed,
although the modification was minimal regarding the preceding dictionary:
from the 1750–1850 period of the first dictionary, to the 1770–1870 century
of the new edition.
Regarding the importance of distancing conceptual history from dictio-
naries, Bödeker writes: “We need to detach conceptual history from the Ge-
schichtliche Grundbegriffe lexicon, since Reinhart Koselleck himself referred
to the ‘Richtlinien’ (guidelines) for the Gestchichtliche Grundbegriffe as an
‘intellectual straightjacket,’ noting that his ‘own thought on conceptual his-
tory has kept changing.’”30 This “wake up call” from Bödeker should come as
no surprise: starting with its alphabetical order, following with its treatment
of single concepts, its emphasis on changes throughout a whole century
(1750–1850) and, lastly, its evident impossibility to give detailed contexts of
debate of each concept at numerous concrete historical moments, any con-
28. Javier Fernández Sebastián, ed., Diccionario político y social del mundo iberoamer-
icano (La era de las revoluciones, 1750–1850) Iberconceptos I [Political and social dictio-
nary of the Iberoamerican world (The age of revolutions, 1750–1850) Iberconceptos I]
(Madrid: Fundación Carolina/SECC/CEPC, 2009).
29. Javier Fernández Sebastián, ed., Diccionario político y social del mundo iberoameri-
cano (Conceptos políticos fundamentales) Iberconceptos II [Political and social dictionary
of the Iberoamerican world (Fundamental political concepts) Iberconceptos II] (Ma-
drid: Universidad del País Vasco/CEPC, 2014).
30. Hans Erich Bödeker, “Begriffsgeschichte as the History of Theory. The History of
Theory as Begriffsgeschichte: An Essay,” in Fernández Sebastián, ed., Political Concepts
and Time, 19–44, here 22. It should be mentioned that the GG was a joint effort in every
sense; the other two editors were the German social historian Werner Conze and the
Austrian medievalist Otto Brunner; besides, dozens of collaborators participated and
many voices were written by more than one author.
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Roberto Breña
ceptual dictionary evinces considerable limitations when viewed from the

perspective of the history of political languages. Using Skinner’s well-known
notion (which he adopted from the philosophy of language), a dictionary
is clearly insufficient to know what an author “was doing” when he wrote
a certain work. It is also insufficient if we want to know to whom he was
responding, or which were some of his main assumptions, or who was he
supporting, or criticizing, or even ignoring. Besides, notwithstanding some
of its own methodological principles and programmatic statements, voices
in conceptual dictionaries often pay too much attention to “great authors”
and/or “great texts.” Some other times, voices become a long list of citations
and references that leave us bereft of a real understanding of what was at
stake, politically and ideologically, in each of the moments considered re-
garding the development of a certain concept and the debates within which
it was used or brandished.
(3) It is important to maintain a critical attitude vis-à-vis some of the
methodological principles that guide the GG and, logically, vis-à-vis their
acritical adoption—in particular, regarding Koselleck’s notion of Sattelzeit
(1750–1850, the period during which the concepts included in the GG went
through what their editors consider a radical transformation). Not only
or mainly because Koselleck himself was very critical of this notion at the
end of his life, but also because in the specific case of the first dictionary
of Iberconceptos, using exactly the same chronology (1750–1850) for the
Iberoamerican context seems to me more than debatable. Independence
was achieved by all the territories in continental Spanish America in the
second and third decades of the nineteenth century. This process implied
a radically new political reality and a radically new political scenario that
was profoundly different from the three centuries of colonial domination.
If Sattelzeit is to a certain extent the change of the linguistic experiences as
a reflection of changes in the historic experience, it seems to me that the
Spanish American Sattelzeit should be located much nearer to the indepen-
dence movements, not more than half a century before they began (as is
the case with the chronology used in Iberconceptos I). This does not ignore
the fact that, as Fernández Sebastián explicitly recognizes in the introduc-
tion to Iberconceptos II, when dealing with so many countries, any starting
or closing year of the chronological period chosen will be insufficient or not
entirely satisfactory.31
(4) Regarding the period of Western history on which Koselleck cen-
tered his attention, I think that conceptual history and the history of po-
31. Javier Fernández Sebastián, “Tiempos de transición en el Atlántico ibérico:
Conceptos políticos en revolución” [Transition times in the Iberian Atlantic: Political
concepts in transformation], Diccionario político y social del mundo iberoamericano, Iber-
conceptos II, 25–72; on the chronological issue, see 33.

litical languages can be very useful in Latin America regarding the Atlantic
Revolutions or, more generally, the “Age of Revolution” (ca. 1763–1848). As
I have expressed elsewhere, in the field of political and intellectual history
the Spanish American independence movements do not respond to the At-
lantic approach with the smoothness that some of its adherents pretend.32
Conceptual history and the history of political languages, with their con-
textual emphasis and their diffidence regarding “influences” can contribute
to a more critical and more nuanced reception and study of the Atlantic ap-
proach in Latin American academia and, therefore, to a more complex un-
derstanding of this period.33 The skepticism of Begriffsgeschichte regarding
continuities, sequences, and similarities in social history and the equivalent
skepticism of the Cambridge School when studying the history of political
thought are salutary antidotes to the traditional way the historiography in
Latin America has approached the role, importance, and pretended lack of
originality of thinkers, political leaders, and publicists of the region during
the Age of Revolution.
(5) There is one last issue that should be taken into consideration re-
garding conceptual history in Latin America. As some of the voices in the
first dictionary clearly show, Koselleck’s work was not well known at that
time (2009) in the Latin American academic context. The situation has
changed, no doubt, but one of the most important obstacles in order to ac-
quire a profound knowledge of the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe remains and,
very probably, will remain in the future: it is written in German and will not
32. In Spanish, I summarized my preventions in this regard in Roberto Breña, El im-

perio de las circunstancias (Las independencias hispanoamericanas y la revolución liberal
española) [The empire of circumstances (The Spanish American Independence move-
ments and the Spanish liberal revolution)] (Madrid: Marcial Pons/El Colegio de México,
2014), 215–227. In English, I presented the cautions that should be considered when ap-
plying the Atlantic perspective to the Spanish American revolutions in Roberto Breña,
“The Cádiz Liberal Revolution and Spanish American Independence,” in New Countries
(Capitalism, Revolutions, and Nations in the Americas, 1750–1870), ed. John Tutino
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), 71–106.
33. Including the purported direct, even causal, links between the Enlightenment and
the Spanish American independence movements. On this topic, see Roberto Breña and
Gabriel Torres Puga, “Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in Spanish America:
Debating Historiographic Categories,” International Journal for History, Culture and Mo-
dernity 7 (2019): 344–371, http://doi.org/10.18352/hcm.562, and Roberto Breña, “El
debate actual sobre la Ilustración y la América española (Discutiendo a Jonathan Israel)”
[The present debate on the Enlightenment and Spanish America (Debating Jonathan
Israel)], in Las revoluciones hispánicas y la historiografía contemporánea (Historia de las
ideas, liberalismo e Ilustración en el mundo hispánico durante la Era de las revoluciones)
[The Hispanic revolutions and contemporary historiography (History of ideas, liberalism
and enlightenment during the age of revolutions)] (Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2021),
175–192.
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Roberto Breña
be translated into other languages.34 The monumental GG (nine volumes,

more than nine thousand pages), in a certain sense Koselleck’s most import-
ant work and the one to which he devoted more time (as author, co-author,
or editor), has not been translated to any other language and, most likely,
never will be (its sheer length makes the undertaking unfeasible in financial
terms for an academic press).35
Beyond Iberconceptos: The Diversity of

Intellectual History in Latin America
As important as it has been during the last twelve years, Iberconceptos is only
one element of the variegated and dynamic world of intellectual history in
Latin America. The vitality that intellectual history evinces at present in the
region goes well beyond Iberconceptos or well beyond any other project con-
sidered in isolation. There are several ways to gauge what is going on today
in Latin America regarding intellectual history. All of them are only approx-
imations, but that should not deter us from doing the exercise.
One possibility, among many, is paying attention to the last congresses
on the field that have taken place in the region. Here, I will center my at-
tention in the last two of them: the Third Congress of Intellectual History
of Latin America (Tercer Congreso de Historia Intelectual de América Latina
or CHIAL III in Spanish) that took place in Mexico City in November 2016,
and the Fourth Congress of Intellectual History of Latin America (CHIAL
IV), that took place in Santiago de Chile in November of 2018.36 As both con-
34. As far as I know, up to now only three entries of the GG have been translated to
Spanish: the voice “Geschichte/Historie,” the voice “Krise,” and the voice “Bildung.” For
Geschichte/Historie, see Reinhart Koselleck, historia/Historia, trans. Antonio Gómez Ra-
mos (Madrid: Trotta, 2004). For Krise, see Reinhart Koselleck, Crítica y crisis [Critique
and crisis], trans. Jorge Pérez de Tudela (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2007), 241–281. For
Bildung, see Juan Guillermo Gómez García, trans., “Formación (Bildung),” Revista Edu-
cación y Pedagogía 14, no. 33 (2002): 7–68 (the author of this voice in the GG was Rudolf
Vierhaus). On the other hand, Luis Fernández Torres translated Koselleck’s introduc-
tion to the GG: “Un texto fundacional de Reinhart Koselleck: Introducción al Diccionario
histórico de conceptos político-sociales básicos en lengua alemana” [A foundational text
by Reinhart Koselleck: Introduction to the Dictionary of political and social basic con-
cepts in the German language], Anthropos 223 (2009): 92–105.
35. To give an idea of Koselleck’s meticulousness and dedication to the GG (twen-
ty-five years in the making if we include the index in two volumes, 1972–1997), it can be
mentioned that it took him two entire years to write only one voice: Bund (federation).
36. The first congress of this kind took place in Medellín, Colombia, in 2012, and the
second in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2014. The next one should have taken place in
Montevideo, Uruguay, in December of 2020, but it was postponed, due to the COVID-19
pandemic, to December of 2021.

gresses showed, and considering the ample participation they both elicited,
it can be said without hesitation that intellectual history is very much alive
in Latin America.
“Eclecticism” may be the best word to define what is going on in the
field today in Latin America. Taking into consideration the topics covered in
the two editions of the CHIAL considered here, it seems that no boundaries
exist for intellectual history in the region. I should insist on the fact that this
situation is not very different from the one in the rest of the world. In Eu-
rope: “For the time being, [European] intellectual historians seem reluctant
to fight about these matters. That may represent a belief that eclecticism is
a good in its own right, and that intellectual history is an inherently eclectic
field.”37 This thought may be comforting for some, but as Darrin McMahon
and Samuel Moyn aptly note: “The danger, however, is a complacent version
of eclecticism that refuses to acknowledge the fact that different approaches
simply are not compatible in their basic premises. If differing methods rest
on conflicting assumptions, the result may not be happy eclecticism so much
as contradiction and confusion.”38 This is a real possibility, and I think a de-
bate on the advantages and disadvantages of eclecticism would be fruitful.
Like the congress in Mexico City advanced and the one in Santiago con-
firmed, the topics that currently predominate in the region are the follow-
ing: intellectuals, intellectual life, intellectual networks of different kind, the
world of the press, political magazines, education, universities, and, finally,
what could be broadly defined as “leftist counterculture.” In chronological
terms, the twentieth century is becoming more and more dominant, with
the nineteenth century far behind and the eighteenth almost disappearing
from view. It should be noted that intellectual history as both a methodol-
ogy and a theoretical self-scrutiny did not carry much weight in either of
the two editions considered here: of the ninety roundtables (forty-four in
Mexico City and forty-six in Santiago), fewer than ten dealt explicitly with
methodological issues or what could be considered self-reflection on the
“discipline” or “field” (I prefer the latter word). All the elements mentioned
are not positive or negative in themselves, they just show the main interests
and concerns that prevail in the contemporary Latin American academic
community regarding intellectual history.
The vitality of intellectual history in Latin America is evident not only in
congresses like the ones just mentioned, but also in the Summer School of
Conceptual History called Concepta, that is organized every year at El Cole-
gio de México, in Mexico City, by universities of six different countries (Mex-
37. Darrin M. McMahon and Samuel Moyn, “Introduction,” in Rethinking Modern Eu-
ropean Intellectual History, ed. Darrin M. McMahon and Samuel Moyn, (New York: OUP,
2014), 11.
38. Ibid.
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Roberto Breña
ico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Spain, and Italy) and by the Iberconceptos
Group. The Concepta Summer School was a success since its first session
in 2016, and it has repeated its appeal in the sessions that followed. The one
that took place in July and August of 2018 received more than a hundred ap-
plications from more than twenty countries, and in the end counted fifty-six
participants from fourteen nations. It was an academic gathering of twelve
days in which several methodologies and many topics of intellectual history
were covered by a group of nineteen experts from Mexico, Argentina, Spain,
United States, Colombia, and Brazil. The Concepta Summer School that
took place in July of 2019 was also a great success: it counted almost a hun-
dred applications, fifty-six students (from fifteen countries) with twenty-
four professors (from eleven academic institutions). It should be added
that notwithstanding the title of this summer school (Concepta), it deals
with much more than conceptual history: the history of political languages,
global history, Latin American intellectuals, gender issues, l’histoire concep-
tuelle du politique, modernity, Atlantic history, translation issues, and also
cultural history, as can be corroborated in the program of the last edition
(2019).
Regarding the dynamism of intellectual history, in a book published a
few years ago, Jan-Werner Müller wrote that Latin America is “a particu-
larly important area of development.”39 This vitality has certain focal points
in the region that should be mentioned. First, the Centro de Historia In-
telectual at Quilmes University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which received
that name in 2011. This nucleus of intellectual history in Latin America has
been working for more than a quarter of a century; its current director is
Elías Palti, whose intellectual reputation and international projection are
well-known. This Centro could be considered the last crystallization of the
work of a series of Argentinian academics working around the Universidad
Nacional de Quilmes, who have specialized in intellectual history for several
decades. In this seminal effort, the role of Oscar Terán, who died in 2008,
was fundamental. Along with Terán, the other main founder and promoter
of the Quilmes group is Carlos Altamirano.40 The editorial centerpiece of the
Centro is the journal Prismas, which began in 1997 and almost a quarter of a
century later is one of the very few journals of the region devoted specifically
39. Jan-Werner Müller, “On Conceptual History,” in McMahon and Moyn, Rethinking
Modern European Intellectual History, 74–93, here 75.
40. About Terán’s intellectual legacy, see the dossier “Oscar Terán, en busca de la
ideología argentina y latinoamericana” [Oscar Terán, in search of the Argentinian and
Latin American ideology], in Prismas (Revista de historia intelectual) 19 (2015): 183–213.
Among several other publications, Altamirano is the director of the two volumes of Histo-
ria de los intelectuales en América Latina [History of intellectuals in Latin America] (Bue-
nos Aires: Katz Editores, 2008–2010).

to intellectual history. With highly reputed researchers like Palti, Altamirano

Myers, and Gorelik, younger researchers like Flavia Fiorucci, Gabriel Entin,
Martín Bergel, and Ximena Espeche, and its MA Program on Intellectual
History, the Centro de Historia Intelectual at Quilmes University constitutes
the most important academic hub of intellectual history in Latin America.
However, there are other Argentinian institutions that are also doing
important things regarding intellectual history. Among them, the Centro
de Investigaciones en Historia Conceptual (CEDINHCO) at the Universi-
dad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires, that has a seminar that has been
active since 2012 and a MA program on conceptual history since 2014; its
present director is Claudio Ingerflom and many academics are directly or in-
directly linked to CEDINHCO. This is an academic endeavor that is in fact a
co-project: two distinguished Italian professors, Giuseppe Duso and Sandro
Chignola, both from the Università di Padova, have been deeply involved
with CEDINHCO since its beginnings, turning it into a bi-continental en-
terprise. By themselves, the two aforementioned institutions turn Argentina
into the most important center of intellectual history in Latin America. How-
ever, directly or indirectly related to them, there are many other Argentinian
researchers who have devoted their attention to intellectual history under-
stood in a broader sense. Among them, Hilda Sabato, Marcela Ternavasio,
Noemí Goldman, and Fabio Wasserman; both Goldman and Wasserman
participated in the two phases of Iberconceptos. It is impossible to name ev-
eryone who is working at present in such an enormous field, but in the Ar-
gentinian context, I would highlight the work of José Carlos Chiaramonte.
For almost sixty years, Chiaramonte has been working on topics such as the
Spanish American Enlightenment, Latin American historiography, the na-
tion, and political languages in the history of the region. Lastly, from a leftist
political perspective centered in the twentieth century, Horacio Tarcus and
the Center he directs (CeDINcI) can be mentioned in this succinct survey.
Of course, in other countries of the region, there are outstanding re-
searchers doing work on intellectual history. With no intention of being ex-
haustive and considering it is the academic context I know better, in Mexico,
Guillermo Zermeño is a very good example, but names like Eugenia Roldán
and Elisa Cárdenas also come to mind immediately. Since 2002, at El Colegio
de México, Carlos Marichal, Alexandra Pita, and Aimer Granados, with the
support and advice of Horacio Crespo, coordinate the Seminario de historia
intelectual de América Latina (SHIAL), and, in 2008, a research group on
intellectual history was created at the Universidad Autónoma Metropoli-
tana (UAM, Cuajimalpa), also in Mexico City. At present, this group counts,
among others, with Granados, Carlos Illades, Alejandro Araujo, and Alejan-
dro Estrella. Outside the two nuclei just mentioned, many other Mexican re-
searchers work on different aspects of intellectual history; among them, José
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Antonio Aguilar, Alfredo Ávila, Elisa Servín, Miruna Achim, Rafael Rojas,
Laura Suárez, Daniela Gleizer, Aurelia Valero, and Sebastián Rivera Mir. In
Colombia, names like Francisco Ortega, Juan Guillermo Gómez García, and
Renán Silva are well-known. In both Mexico and Colombia, researchers do
not concentrate in a single institution, and there is no academic entity de-
voted specifically to intellectual history. In other Latin American countries,
like Chile, researchers devoted to intellectual history seem to confront a sim-
ilar situation; among them, Iván Jaksić, Ivette Lozoya and Eduardo Devés.
The Brazilian academic world deserves more attention than what some
Western (including Latin American) academics have conceded to it. As far
as I can see, Valdei Lopes de Araujo, Marcelo Gantus Jasmin, and João Feres
Júnior were among the first authors to devote serious attention to the field.
In 2006, Jasmin and Feres edited História dos conceitos: debates e perspec-
tivas and the following year they published História dos conceitos: diálogos
transatlânticos. In 2009, Feres edited Léxico da história dos conceitos políticos
do Brasil, which was the result of Brazilian participation in the first phase
of Iberconceptos. The Brazilian academic universe is so vast that several uni-
versities give an important place to intellectual history. The Universidade
Federal de Ouro Preto is very strong in certain aspects of it, and Lopes de
Araujo represents the quality of the work carried out there. The university
also sponsors the electronic journal História da Historiografia. The Univer-
sidade de São Paulo publishes another electronic journal on intellectual
history, Intelligere, and counts with academics versed in the field, like João
Paulo Pimenta and Sara Albieri. Temístocles Cezar works in the Universi-
dade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, and Jasmin carries out his research at
the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. As can be inferred
from the above, along with Argentina, Brazil may be the only other country
in Latin America that counts with what could be considered a “critical mass”
in intellectual history as mainly conceived in this article.
There is one last aspect that should be mentioned before concluding this
section. This issue is predominantly about language, but it is intertwined
with the topic of academic colonialism and related with what is starting to
be known as “Global Intellectual History.” Latin American historians who
do not master English well enough to publish in Shakespeare’s language will
have a very hard time establishing any contact with their English-speaking
counterparts and, therefore, it will be almost impossible for their findings to
go beyond their national or Latin American borders. As we all know, many
English-speaking academics do not master languages other than English or,
if they do, Spanish is not among them (a cursory look at the bibliographies
they use in their books and articles suffices to prove this point, even when
their topics have a manifestly Latin American content). There is a sort of par-
adox here in the sense that albeit the utmost importance given to language

by contemporary intellectual history (that is, to the terms and concepts

used in the language of a specific country or group of countries), some of its
English-speaking cultivators seem to think that the English language is the
only legitimate or valid instrument of communication in the field of intel-
lectual history. Considering the power relations in contemporary academia
and the absolute predominance of the English language, this will surely end
up being the case, but in my view, this is misleading and paradoxical to the
extent that it goes against one of the basic methodological principles of con-
temporary intellectual history: the practical incommensurability of each
concept and its concrete usage in each language.
In my view, this incommensurability and the scarcity of researchers
mastering several languages turns “global intellectual history” on an indi-
vidual basis into a Sisyphean task. In fact, some historians have manifested
their deep skepticism regarding this kind of history. In the words of Freder-
ick Cooper: “It is salutary to get away from whatever tendencies they may
have been to analyze social, economic, political, and cultural processes as
if they took place in national and continental containers; but to adopt a
language that implies there is no container at all, except the planetary one,
risks defining problems in misleading ways.”41 If the increasingly fashionable
“global history” tends to decontextualize actors, events, and processes with
its sweeping generalizations and a planetary interconnectedness since the
sixteenth century that often seems implausible, global intellectual history
does something similar from the moment it ignores or puts in parentheses
the incommensurability in question.42
My point here is that, in functional terms, the only “global history” that
has been practiced until now and the only one that, as far as I can see, will
prevail in the near future is the one carried out exclusively in one of the more
than five thousand tongues spoken in the world today: English (including
sources!). Of course, we can discuss methodological issues in English (as
I do in this article), and that is important in intellectual terms, no doubt,
but if we want to go beyond a debate of this kind and delve into the histor-
41. Cited by Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual
History,” in Global Intellectual History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015),
3–30, here 20. In their text, Moyn and Sartori are very skeptical about the creation of a
field that could be properly called “global intellectual history.”
42. Limiting myself to the independence movements in the Americas during the Age
of Revolutions, I discuss the aforementioned tendency to overemphasize connections in
the last section of “Los movimientos de independencia en el continente americano du-
rante la Era de la revolución” [The independence movements in the American continent
during the Age of Revolution] in Roberto Breña, Liberalismo e independencia en la Era de
las revoluciones (México y el mundo hispánico) [Liberalism and independence in the Age
of Revolution (Mexico and the Hispanic World)] (Mexico City: El Colegio de México,
2021): 20–68, the section in question 61–68.
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Roberto Breña
ical, practical, and social issues that are a consubstantial part of conceptual
history and the history of political languages, then either you master other
languages and expand your intellectual curiosity or we will all remain within
a sort of “methodological circle.”
At present, if you want to participate in the “globality” of the new “global
intellectual history,” either you write in English and pay attention to the is-
sues that the English-speaking experts in the field are willing to highlight
or discuss, or you will simply be left out. In my opinion, the quid pro quo
I suggested in the last paragraph (global intellectual history in English qua
global intellectual history) remains untouched. If this is true, either global
intellectual history becomes more multilingual in every aspect or part of its
essence will be lost.
Concluding Remarks
This article is an overview that touches some salient facets of conceptual his-
tory, the history of political languages, and intellectual history in general. Its
matter and its main concern, however, is one single region: Latin America.
In this regard, it is important not to exaggerate the significance or scope of
intellectual history; in Latin America in the first place, but also in Western
academia in general. As Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori wrote a few years
ago: “In the North Atlantic academy, intellectual history has been, and to
some extent remains, marginal to the historical discipline.”43 If this is the case
in what could be considered the “heartland” of intellectual history in meth-
odological terms, it is important not to paint an overtly optimistic picture
in other regions of the world, notwithstanding the progress that has been
made in several of them during the last years. While there are reasons to
be optimistic regarding Latin America, from my perspective, there are also
important obstacles to overcome. Among them, I would underline the ex-
tended distrust or mistrust of Latin American historians vis-à-vis what could
be defined as “theory.”
“We can escape from our isolation only via a new relationship to other
disciplines. This means that we must recognize our need for theory or,
rather, face the necessity of doing theory if history still wants to conceive
of itself as an academic discipline.” Koselleck wrote these words in 1969.44
Some pages ahead, he writes: “Only a theoretical anticipation that uncovers
a specific time period can open the possibility of working through certain
43. Moyn and Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History,” 3.
44. Reinhart Koselleck, “On the Need for Theory in the Discipline of History,” in The
Practice of Conceptual History (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002): 1–19,
here 1.

readings and transposing our dictionary from a level of positivistic recording

to that of a conceptual history. Only theory transforms our work into historical
research.”45 In my view, the fact that the father of Begriffsgeschichte felt that
it was important to assert the need for theory as an indispensable element
for the practice of any historian is far from irrelevant. In fact, this reminder
by Koselleck seems to me symptomatic or revealing of a tendency by many
historians to be diffident toward theory or what they consider “too much
theory” in their craft. I agree that there are dangers that derive from what
could be called an “intellectualization of history,” but in my view the two
methodologies discussed in this article (conceptual history and the history
of political languages) show that in numerous aspects they can illuminate the
work of historians when dealing with certain topics. Besides, it is important
to stress that for Koselleck, the need for theory goes hand in hand with wid-
ening the links of history with other disciplines.46
Although Koselleck expressed these thoughts many years ago and think-
ing exclusively in the European context, in my case, having being trained
in the history of political thought and considering myself a historiographer
who developed his professional life in close contact with Latin American
historians, I agree with his forceful demand. In my view, academics who
work on political history in Latin America should be much less diffident to-
ward theoretical thinking and toward other disciplines. This means, among
other things, that they should try to have an idea of what is going in a field
like intellectual history (or in some of its parcels) and, if possible, in polit-
ical science, political thought, and political theory. This acquaintance with
other areas of knowledge would surely have consequences on their work in
general and would give them tools to question some assumptions regard-
ing their craft and the way they practice it. Maybe even more important,
an inquisitive attitude toward theory would also make them more attentive
and more careful regarding the way they employ certain terms, apply certain
categories, or use certain concepts.
The last two paragraphs do not mean or imply that “theory,” even less
“metatheory,” should become prevalent in the field of history. “Factual his-
tory,” if I may use the term, is the litmus test of any theory that has history as
its main object. The programs of the congresses of intellectual history that
have taken place every two years in Latin America since 2012 give us an idea
of the great diversity that exists within the field in the region and shows that
even in these Latin American academic gatherings methodological and the-
45. Ibid., 6 (my italics).
46. A lot has been written about the interdisciplinary character of intellectual history;
a clear and illuminating text on this topic is Warren Breckman, “Intellectual History and
the Interdisciplinary Ideal,” in McMahon and Moyn, Rethinking Modern European Intel-
lectual History, 275–293.
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Roberto Breña
oretical issues come far behind political or social history, that have method-
ologies of their own. This is where, I think, a debate on eclecticism regarding
intellectual history in Latin America is in order. In my view, the perceptible
lack of familiarity (even contact) that still prevails among historians of the
region with the issues and approaches discussed in this article has implica-
tions for history as a discipline in Latin America. In my view, this lack of
familiarity should be taken into consideration when debating the contempo-
rary status of intellectual history in the region.47 The diffidence in question is
unwarranted for the most part, but it requires explanation.
I may be giving a false impression to some readers; hence, I will try to
clarify. Evidently, there is no zero-sum game between history and theory.
Not in history as a discipline and, of course, not in intellectual history as the
huge field of research it is. This recognition, however, should not be used by
Latin American historians to continue to keep theoretical issues at bay. In
other words, it should not be used to keep doing political, social, or cultural
history about certain topics without any knowledge of the methodological
issues that some noteworthy intellectual historians in Western academia
have put forward during the last five decades and that some Latin Ameri-
can historians, like Elías Palti, have reconfigured in certain aspects. Latin
American intellectual history, as any other, has and will keep on having its
specificities, but from my perspective, they should not turn themselves into
a carte blanche for an all-encompassing intellectual history, one for which
almost everything can be considered “intellectual history.”
I know I covered too many topics in this article; this profusion may ob-
scure my main concerns and what I wanted to put on the mesa de debate
(roundtable). If this is the case, Willibald Steinmetz and Michael Freeden
may help me recap and refocus. In the following quote, they refer to con-
ceptual history in particular, but it can perfectly be applied to intellectual
history in general: “Conceptual history is not an orthodoxy, but continually
reinvents itself. As it crosses national and disciplinary boundaries, as it en-
ters different countries and linguistic spaces, as it is applied to new objects
of study, the history of concepts is changing and will further develop in prac-
tice and theoretical outlook.”48 This is what is taking place in Latin America
47. As the French case shows, the standing in Latin America of intellectual history
is not exceptional. In a chapter of a book published in 2014, Antoine Lilti writes: “For
French historians, intellectual history barely exists.” Antoine Lilti, “Does Intellectual His-
tory Exist in France?: The Chronicle of a Renaissance Foretold,” in McMahon and Moyn,
Rethinking Modern European Intellectual History, 56–73, here 56. I may add here that
there is a parcel of intellectual history (historiography, proper) that does exist in Latin
America. In this case, however, it seems to me that, for the most part, its Latin American
practitioners are glossators of mainly French, German, and American historiographers.
48. Willibald Steinmetz and Michael Freeden, “Conceptual History (Challenges, Co-

today with what I called “new intellectual history” at the beginning of this
article. So far, so good. However, at this juncture, it is impossible to know if
the eclecticism that the preceding quotation suggests will end up being more
complacent than rigorous in the region. In any case, the need for rigor, the-
ory, interdisciplinarity, multilingualism, and intellectual openness remains
regarding the discipline of history, in the universities of Latin America of
course, but exactly the same applies to all the other academic institutions of
the Western world.
More specifically, in this article my objective was to clearly distinguish
between two different methodologies: conceptual history and the history
of political languages. For reasons that I cannot gather, they are increasingly
conflated; not only in Latin America. For me, the “disjoining exercise” I in-
tended here is not only useful in itself, intellectually speaking. I also consider
it a device to encourage the study and discussion of intellectual history in the
region.
To conclude: there is a growing interest in intellectual history in Latin
America today, particularly among young historians, political scientists, and
political theorists. I think this interest is one of the best guarantees of the
promising future that awaits a field that still raises the eyebrows of many
historians of the region.
Roberto Breña is professor and researcher in the Centre for International

Studies at El Colegio de México in Mexico City.
E-mail: rbrena@colmex.mx
nundrums, Complexities),” in Conceptual History in the European Space, ed. Willibald

Steinmetz, Michael Freeden, and Javier Fernández Sebastián (Oxford: Berghahn Books,
2017), 1–46, here 31.
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Tensions and Challenges

In the twentieth century, intellectual history in Latin America has an an-

This “new intellectual history” comprises a completely different way of ap-

90 contributions to the history of concepts

The indeterminacy of intellectual history is an aspect that has long been

92 contributions to the history of concepts

94 contributions to the history of concepts

Conceptual History and the History of

Since conceptual history and the history of political languages began to be

this regard, it is no wonder the term is disappearing from the vocabulary of

96 contributions to the history of concepts

The affinities between Koselleck’s and Skinner’s intellectual enterprises,

98 contributions to the history of concepts

why Skinner strikes me as a conventional historian concerned with a load of

assemble these discrete strands in order to recreate a totality.”20 In contrast,

Iberconceptos and Its Reception in Latin America:

The preceding section serves as an introduction to some of the elements

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seventy-five researchers from nine countries: Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Ar-

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ceptual dictionary evinces considerable limitations when viewed from the

104 contributions to the history of concepts

32. In Spanish, I summarized my preventions in this regard in Roberto Breña, El im-

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be translated into other languages.34 The monumental GG (nine volumes,

Beyond Iberconceptos: The Diversity of

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108 contributions to the history of concepts

to intellectual history. With highly reputed researchers like Palti, Altamirano

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by contemporary intellectual history (that is, to the terms and concepts

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readings and transposing our dictionary from a level of positivistic recording

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114 contributions to the history of concepts

Roberto Breña is professor and researcher in the Centre for International

nundrums, Complexities),” in Conceptual History in the European Space, ed. Willibald

summer 2021 115

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