Peerless Dulcinea, Love of God, and Shoah
Steps toward the Conceptual History of Incomparability
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3866096 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kirill Postoutenko (0000-0001-7253-5299, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 80-103 |
| Publication date | 2023-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contributions to the History of Concepts (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1807-9326 • E-ISSN: 1874-656X |
| Publisher | Berghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3167/choc.2023.180206 |
| OpenAlex | W4386041227 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Building upon the extended notion of conceptual history as a diachronic study of conceptual interactions, the article begins with deconstructing the paradoxical semantic core of incomparability statements that, it is claimed, endows them with a capacity of stabilizing social semantics. By declaring certain foundational values-positive (Shoah) or negative (God)-"incomparable" and thus immune to the challenges of cross-evaluation, the users of discourse uphold the boundaries of civilized society. On a smaller scale, this exclusion of competitive valuation is undergirded by the ascription of "incomparability" to the small pool of political and cultural figures, literary artifacts, social events, and representative allegories. The conclusion outlines the social contingency of conventions regulating the ascriptions of "incomparability" against the backdrop of their discursive stability across genres, epochs, and languages
Aesthetics · Contingency · Epistemology · Linguistics · Sociology · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |