El Ganzes Haus de Brunner y la práctica de la historia conceptual

Abstract

This paper tackles Otto Brunner's work about the Ganzes Haus from the twofold perspective of conceptual history and political philosophy. Its purpose is not to test the validity of a presumed model -the "whole house- hold"- in relation to different fields of empirical facts, but to shed light on the critical tools that Brunner gave us in order to understand the past and reflect upon the present. Against Reinhart Koselleck's perspective -which sets up a continuous line between ancient and modern concepts on the basis of formal categories- , Brunner's conceptual history emphasizes the Trennung with the classical era above all. The critical awareness of the radical rupture introduced by Modern Age, allows us to demarcate the limits of those concepts that still organize all human and social sciences -from economy to history- , and, paradoxically, it predisposes us to listen to the lessons that come to us from the Ancients. By showing the incapacity of modern concepts to understand the sources from the past, Brunner reveals, at the same time, their failure in apprehending the problems of our present. In this way, his historical work revives some unavoidable philosophical issues that allow us to question the future of modern politics and to open the field for a political reflection that takes the risk of thinking government’s function and justice's place, beyond the sovereign State and representative democracy.