Claus Langbehn

In this article, I explore historical lines in the development of the language of political culture (politische Kultur). The usage between the end of the eighteenth and middle of the twentieth century will be outlined in a first section. The Civic Culture, a classic in Political Culture Research, and selected developments following this book will be the subject of the second section. The article closes with some considerations on recent philosophical usages of the term in question.

The German word ›Selbstverständnis‹ was coined by the end of the 18th century, probably by Novalis. Within German Idealism it was the late Fichte who used it almost systematically from 1805. It then took root in philosophy, rather surprisingly, not so much through the 19th century humanities as through Martin Heidegger. Some years ago it was argued that ›Selbstverständnis‹ as used in the common language of the second half of the 20th century was a buzzword. This is true also for contemporary German philosophy, although there are tendencies which show that the word might be on its way to become a philosophical conceptor term. In the present article, I investigate the development of the philosophical expression ,Selbstverständnis’ from its beginnings up to this day, an attempt not made so far.

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