Circulation of Fundamental Concepts

Abstract

In this article, the concept of generation is studied as a case of the circulation of fundamental concepts between sociology and various disciplines in the humanities. It is argued that this concept underwent a change in meaning as it was transferred into the newly established German discipline of sociology. This change was marked by an increasing spatialization of a concept hitherto mainly temporal in nature. Moving from art history into philosophy of history and then sociology, the concept came to signify a social structure of either experience or an objective structure with economic underpinnings. The article follows the concept through the works and discussions of mainly Wilhelm Pinder, Karl Mannheim, José Ortega y Gasset, and Ernst Bloch.