History of esotericism: from the genealogy of a concept into the construction of an intellectual field
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12957/intellectus.2025.86979Keywords:
History of esotericism, History of ideas, Sociology of knowledgeAbstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze the polysemic concept of “esotericism”, not in a sense to find an a priori definition for it, but rather to elucidate how this concept is used by many intellectuals, which can construct both diverse perspectives of analysis, as well as different projects and institutional formulations within the disciplinary field of the “history of esotericism”. In this sense, the approaches of Frances Yates, Antoine Faivre, Wounter Hanegraaff and contemporary critics of this constellation of authors will be examined, as well as their intellectual and institutional affiliations. Thus, based on the genealogy of esotericism, the aim of this work is to capture the wandering of a concept, that is, its dynamics of survival and reinvention in historical and sociological terms.
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