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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
The existence of core ideas, ideas which are never altered during a person's lifetime, are overlooked by historians who exclusively concentrate on the relativity of thought. Ideas of this unchanging nature are called atomic concepts. A study of Gerhard Ritter's major themes demonstrates that ideas can be either relative or atomic. Although they received different illuminations in different historical environments, Ritter possessed a group of atomic concepts. They were the material for a basic Weltanschauung, which survived seventy-nine years of history in fluid, but unmistakable form.
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