What is it about?
This chapter explores how the idea of “prejudice” has been used and debated in scholarly work from the seventeenth century to today. Rather than offering a full history, it highlights moments that show how certain intellectual “vices” persist even as their meanings shift. The chapter examines both formal theories of prejudice and the ways the term has been used rhetorically, including cases where prejudice is seen not as a flaw but as an inevitable feature of human thinking. It also traces how the concept moves across fields such as logic, psychology, social science, and hermeneutics.
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Why is it important?
This work matters because it shows how a single, familiar notion—prejudice—has shaped perception of scholarly thinking across centuries and disciplines. By uncovering how the term has been defined, used, and reinterpreted, the chapter reveals ways in which we can explain the persistence of this perception across centuries. Understanding these shifting meanings also helps us see how intellectual “vices” are defined and policed, how academic communities negotiate their standards, and how everyday thinking influences scholarly judgment.
Perspectives
To me, this research has been an opportunity to reflect on historical views on responsibility about our thinking, on conflict within epistemic communities and on limits of our human nature.
Sorana Corneanu
University of Bucharest
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Notes towards a History of “Prejudice,” Early to Late Modern, September 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004725058_004.
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