Concepts only carry meaning within the theory that frames them

Evidence

In the chapter devoted to Art it is affirmed that the most recent works on aesthetics maintain the unity of form and content. This can be seen as one of the most glaring examples of the author’s critical inability to establish the history of concepts and to identify the real significance of the concepts themselves within various theories. In point of fact the identification of content and form is affirmed by idealist aesthetics (Croce), but on idealistic premisses and with idealistic terminology. “Content” and “form” do not therefore have the meaning the Manual supposes. That form and content are identified means that in art the content is not the “abstract subject”, that is the novelistic plot and a particular mass of generic sentiments, but is art itself, a philosophical category, a “distinct” moment of the spirit, etc. Nor does form mean “technique” as the Manual maintains. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1663

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains that Croce’s identification of form and content means neither term carries its commonsense meaning — content is a distinct moment of spirit, not plot.
• DEEPTHINKING: Core methodological principle: concepts are theory-relative, so borrowing a term across theories without re-grounding it is an error — directly relevant to how terms like ‘discourse’ or ‘hegemony’ move between literatures.
• XREF: This is the principle behind Gramsci’s critique of the Manual — a vulgar, mechanical reading that lifts idealist concepts onto materialist premisses. Parallels later postcolonial critiques of lifting Western theoretical vocabulary into other contexts.