Louis Mink's Linguistic Turn

Bibliographic Data

ID4495415
AuthorsRichard T Vann (corresponding author)
Year1987
Volume26
Issue1
Pages1
Publication date1987-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2505256
OpenAlexW2333314522
LanguageEN
Citations received6

This is an essay in the history of ideas, in which I attempt to trace the development of Louis Mink's philosophy of history, beginning with his classic essay The Autonomy of Historical Understanding [1965] and culminating in Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument [1976]. Reconstruction of the development of Mink's thinking presents a number of methodological difficulties, even for someone who knew him well. Much of Mink's writing was occasional, and some of it was constrained by stringent space or time limitations. Also, some of his unpublished writings may present ideas that he later came to reject. But in general the overall coherence of his philosophical thinking is impressive. Mink's thinking about history in this period was marked by an ever-deepening interest in the textuality and intertextuality of historical accounts, in the modes of representation which historians adopt and use to produce their reality effects, and in the effort to mediate between what he was to call the New Rhetorical Relativism' and the claim that histories are in some sense true. This was a mediation, I shall argue, that was never successfully accomplished

Biology · Epistemology · Linguistic turn · Linguistics · Mink · Turn (biochemistry) · Ecology · History · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

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