Michael, I think the character of the text necessarily comes first. That certainly is under-described here, and could no doubt be expanded upon. The burden of this post, I suppose, was to figure out in addition to standard tools (e.g., articulating ideas, tracing their continuities) what extra tools you need to address intellectualized texts (e.g., working out how passages in one text relate to passages in another). This is better than putting a methodological definition first, since I’m not sure an intellectual history would be very good if it proceeded using only the “extras” that are peculiar to the sub-genre.

My mention of “song lyrics, advertisements, property records…” were intended to be examples of non-intellectualized texts. One might include things like a company’s annual reports. I was trying to think if any published non-fiction text would not be an intellectualized text, and, oddly, I kept thinking of things that are the product of heavily intellectualized activities, but are not obviously themselves intellectualized, like routine statistical reports, but, then, I think you could argue that one the other way, too. Anyway, that’s one I’d like to chew on further, and if you have any thoughts, I’d be glad to see them.

Patrick: As I mentioned to Michael last time, such questions are an intended result of the post, and certainly not a pain. I’m going to be taking my best crack at the various genres of history of science and their relations to other genres like intellectual history over the next two posts, so I’ll definitely take your question into account as I cook them up.

If I follow, then, intellectualized texts are defined as those “to which the methodology of intellectual history applies”, and you describe this methodology at some length. The only direct aspects I noted of intellectualized texts are that they “consciously build on and respond to other people’s works,” and that they “often, but not necessarily, develop their ideas in the form of arguments.”

Is it possible to reverse the definitional flow, first describing with some precision what qualifies as an intellectualized text, and then making intellectual history the study of these texts? Or does the nature of subject somehow dictate the priority of the methodology?

What would a paradigmatic[*] example be of a non-intellectualized text?

(*) in the original, non-Kuhnian sense!

“History of Mental Constructs”. (Peruses up close, then walks backward to gaze at from a distance.) Not very inviting, maybe even a bit ugly. (Walks around the rest of the exhibit, then wanders by for a second glance before leaving the exhibit.) It’s starting to grow on me.

The likelihood of confusion is abundantly clear, though. I do think it’s useful to have some very general catchall term for the study of “things of the mind,” as I don’t think the subsets of the genre will divvy themselves up into well-organized slots. Is “etiquette” a standalone concept, or is it a subset of some mid-level genre of history, culture perhaps, which is, in turn, to be separated somehow from the intellectualized world of scientific arguments?

My fear is that we could be stuck with some ugly and opaque term like the History of Mental Constructs. As I say, I remain open to suggestions, but for the purposes of this series, I’ll continue to use History of Ideas in this way for the time being.

Let’s test it out, with a couple of made-up quotes.

“Galileo’s ideas encountered resistance among the Jesuits: not the explicit ideas, but the implicit ideas.”

“Galileo ideas encountered resistance among the Jesuits, not because of their content, but because he displayed a lack of etiquette in how he expressed them.”

Does Shapin use “idea” to include “etiquette”? If so, I’d have to see the exact quote to make a judgment.

Btw, I certainly see how “idea” can be stretched to include “etiquette”. But is that a good move to make when refining one’s terminology?

As I say, this is mainly just how I tend to think of these things, so I’d be open to different terminology, especially if it was more apt to result in some sort of consensus. To me, “ideas” has such an open connotation that I tend to prefer it for the general term, and it gives you a better sense of what one is tracking than just “thought”. But, it is, of course, bound up with Lovejoy’s “unit-ideas,” as well as other established definitions, so it could easily sow confusion as well.

I think I’m getting “etiquette” from Steven Shapin, though I can see how it seems weird. I do like Shapin’s emphasis on the way ideas and arguments have to be presented in accord with some broader code of conduct in order to be given credence; see also Mario Biagioli on Galileo.

You start with the laudable goal of increased linguistic precision. It seems an odd choice then to stretch the net of “ideas” as far as the elastic limit allows, subsuming “values”, “ideals”, “prejudices”, “etiquette”, … wait, “etiquette“?!

Perhaps you wouldn’t need the implicit/explicit distinction if you used “idea” less embracingly.

Also, taking a phrase with a well-established history (namely “history of ideas”) and endowing it with a rather different meaning, doesn’t seem the best route to reducing confusion. Especially if it results in what was a superset (“intellectual history”) becoming a subset.

I know, I’m being a negative nag. That’s because I really like the direction your thoughts (ideas, values, mentalities…) seem to be taking; I’m just not thrilled with your terminology.

That said, problematized narratives often exist in tension with, or as a “corrective” to some baseline celebratory narrative, and therefore tend not to be celebratory themselves. Thus, while, in principle, a problematized narrative can lead to an epistemologically richer account, it usually involves highlighting a “social” component: the tacitly accepted idea, the trusted instrument, the rhetorical skill of scientists in their besting of opponents.