Studying an unsystematized worldview requires philological reconstruction of its stable core
Evidence
If one wishes to study the birth of a conception of the world which has never been systematically expounded by its founder (and one furthermore whose essential coherence is to be sought not in each individual writing or series of writings but in the whole development of the multiform intellectual work in which the elements of the conception are implicit) some preliminary detailed philological work has to be done. This has to be carried out with the most scrupulous accuracy, scientific honesty and intellectual loyalty and without any preconceptions, apriorism or parti pris . It is necessary, first of all, to reconstruct the process of intellectual development of the thinker in question in order to identify those elements which were to become stable and âpermanentââin other words those which were taken up as the thinkerâs own thought, distinct from and superior to the âmaterialâ which he had studied earlier and which served as a stimulus to him. â Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1359
Categorization
- XREF: Gramsci describing how to âreadâ Marxâs implicit conception prefigures the method later scholars apply to reading Gramsci himself, and to reconstructing a canonâs essential coherence. â connects to: Studying an unsystematic founderâs worldview requires scrupulous philological reconstruction; Studying a worldviewâs origin requires philological reconstruction and identifying discarded provisional elements.
- yield-rescued: below the bookâs yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Studying an unsystematic founderâs worldview requires scrupulous philological reconstruction; Studying a worldviewâs origin requires philological reconstruction and identifying discarded provisional elements.