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Which ontological hypotheses lie behind a political philosophy? In which sense do natural philosophy and political thought cling together? How do diverse areas of knowledge interact in order to achieve a new concept, i.e. a new conceptual framework and their associated linguistic shifts? How do other disciplines mould the way we understand diverse domains? How does a concept arise, which sources make them possible, understandable and thereby transmittable in that very culture? Which are their cognitive a prioris? (1)

Concepts serve to depict and legitimize, making under-standable part of the plain of consistence and thus shareable, a state of affairs, a given condition is apprehended and thus rendered compatible with other areas of knowledge or belief, ideas and values. The interplay of reality and ideality, its interlocking, occurs, in social science, by means of concepts. Comprehensive sociology aimed at inquiring the different dimensions of ideal types. More than abstract generic concepts we aspire to trace the genetic singular movements of their deployment. Their individual content can only be historically appraised, uplifting the apparent hypostasis by the use of language, by an analysis of synchronous contiguity and diachronic resemblance. Although Weber recognized the difficulty of defining the borders of historical categories, it was precisely this caveat that required even more from clear concepts.(2)

In the following posts we will dwell with sovereignty and individual are concepts conforming practices and values people adhere to and that serve to fathom behaviour, to make it rational in the sense of comprehensible and thus commonsensical rather than insane. Still Weber openly criticized, in relation to his multiple causation claim, the practice of referring to certain historical phases by attending to a single concept, in this case the individual, these simple descriptive analysis do not explain.(3) We will concentrate on the underpinnings, on the framework in which these are inserted, instantiated, and constructed, for this opens up an inquire about their connection and efficacy, and replaces the interpretations concerning the whys, based on an intentional, sociological imprint, for the hows, theoretical, conceptual and their particular embodiment in mental schemes.

(1) So far as it was a question for the schools or the pursuit of isolated thinkers, its treatment belongs to the historian of philosophy. But inasmuch as it entered into the consciousness of a wider public, it is necessary for us to say a few words respecting it.” J. Burckhardt, op. cit., VI, Religion and the Spirit of Renaissance.

(2) M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Tübingen, 1975, p. 123. Schmitt refers to a conceptual sociology and its activity in his Politische Theologie opting for a clarification of both the conceptual and the social structure given at a time. “Zu ihr gehört, dass, hinausgehend über die an den nächsten praktischen Interessen des Rechtslebens orientierte juristische Begrifflichkeit, die letzte, radikal systematische Struktur gefunden und diese begriffliche Struktur mit der begrifflichen Verarbeitung der sozialen Struktur einer bestimmten Epoche verglichen wird. Ob das Ideelle der radikalen Begrifflichkeit hier der Reflex einer soziologischen Wirklichkeit ist, oder ob die soziale Wirklichkeit als die Folge einer bestimmten Art zu denken und infolgedessen auch zu handeln aufgefasst wird, kommt hierfür nicht in Betracht. Vielmehr sind zwei geistige, aber substantielle Identitäten nachzuweisen.” C. Schmitt, Politische Theologie, Berlin, 1922, p. 59.

(3) M. Weber, op. cit., footnote 23, p. 126. “Weber does not set out to explain why Catholicism should give rise to a more rational religion, such as Calvinism, but tries to explain how Calvinism, with its emphasis on rational ‘asceticism’, could possibly arise out of medieval Catholicism.” A. Ferrara, Modernity and Authenticity. A study in the Social and Ethical Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, New York, 1992, p. 120. Which elements were at hand to provoke this rearrengement of elements, their conditions of possibility.

Ideas make us think, they suppose an a priori of our conceptions, somehow they are independent of us, but they require the persistence of human-like life; both dimensions, langue and parole, converge in social existence. The history of ideas has often focused on the level of langue, on the context, on mentality, but we should also resort to the conceptual, cognitive, integration of diverse concepts. Foucault has stressed the illusion of a cogito to understand the history of ideas, concepts loom out of planes of construction disposed on the existing orography of knowledge, the condition of existence of a discourse, shaping the conditions of possibility of judgement, vectors on a plain. A noetic space should display a certain correspondence between the structure of thought and the structure of mind. Ideas represent the absolute immanence of our thought, the receptacle of understanding, posing the frame on which we insert our experience, they become ineluctable, we think through them, they become belief and our judgements simply traverse, in different directions, the given plain of consistence despite multiple possible constructions allowed by the orography.(1) But the incorporation is never evident, it is always open to variation, to mutation.

(1) “De las ideas-ocurrencias -y conste que incluyo en ellas las verdades más rigorosas de la ciencia- podemos decir que las producimos, las sostenemos, las discutimos, las propagamos, combatimos en su pro y hasta somos capaces de morir por ellas. Lo que no podemos es … vivir de ellas. Son obra nuestra y, por lo mismo, suponen ya nuestra vida, la cual se asienta en ideas-creencias que no producimos nosotros, que, en general, ni siquiera nos formulamos y que, claro está, no discutimos ni propagamos ni sostenemos. Con las creencias propiamente no hacemos nada, sino que simplemente estamos en ellas. Precisamente lo que no nos pasa jamás- si hablamos cuidadosamente- con nuestras ocurrencias. El lenguaje vulgar ha inventado certeramente la expresión ‘estar en la creencia’. En efecto, en la creencia se está, y la ocurrencia se tiene y se sostiene. Pero la creencia es quien nos tiene y sostiene a nosotros.” J. Ortega y Gasset, “Creer y Pensar”, Ideas y Creencias, Madrid, 1940.