Hybrid Constellations

In this essay, I reflect on the idea of reading the historiography of post-Kantian philosophy after the spatial turn, and, in particular, I look to the ‘strong spatial imagery’ deployed by Dieter Henrich and others as part of his Konstellationsforschung project. I identify both the concrete constellation-space of historical figures and documents and the Denkraum (conceptual space) constructed within Konstellationsforschung and examine them in isolation and in their interrelationship through various encounters with the spatial imagery of other historiographical methodologies. In the second half of the essay, I pursue two transnational conversations in the historiography of post-Kantian philosophy, considering the historical site of the constellation in dialogue with Christian Jacob’s lieux de savoir project and then the genesis of Denkräume in dialogue with a French tradition of ‘impure’ or ‘hybrid’ histories of philosophy. I conclude with some specifications for redescribing the genesis of philosophical events as hybrid.