Theory in practice: Quentin Skinner's hobbes, reconsidered

Review of Politics

Volumn 62, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 531-562

  Goodhart, Michael ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0346567974     PISSN: 00346705     EISSN: 17486858     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0034670500041681     Document Type: Review

References (145)

1. Ashcraft, "The Radical Dimensions of Locke's Political Thought: A Dialogic Essay on Some Problems of Interpretation/' History of Political Thought 13 (1992): 707.
2. Hobbes, Behemoth, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vol., ed. Sir William Molesworth (London: 1839-1845) 6: 254.
3. See, most recently, Ted Miller and Tracy B. Strong, "Meanings and Contexts: Mr. Skinner's Hobbes and the English Mode of Political Theory," Inquiry 40 (1997).
4. "[Skinner's Foundations] is primarily of interest to philosophers not for its excellent account of European thought about the state but for the self-conscious philosophy that has gone into it" (Kenneth Minogue, "Method in Intellectual History: Quentin Skinner's Foundations," Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed. James Tully and Quentin Skinner [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988], p. 176 [emphasis added]).
5. Skinner, "Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action"; "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas," Meaning and Context, pp. 97,64, respectively).
6. Cf. Minogue, "Method in Intellectual History," p. 177.
7. Skinner, "Some Problems," pp. 98-99.
8. His recent work is no exception; see Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 7-8,15;
9. Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. lOlff.
10. Cf. James Tully, "The Pen is a Mighty Sword: Quentin Skinner's Analysis of Politics," Meaning and Context, p. 16.
11. Cf. Skinner, "A Reply to My Critics," Meaning and Context, pp. 267, 278.
12. Tully, "Pen is a Mighty Sword," p. 9.
13. Cf. Skinner, '"Social Meaning' and the Explanation of Social Action," Meaning and Context, p. 94.
14. Skinner, "Motives, Intentions, and the Interpretation of Texts," Meaning and Context, pp. 77-78
15. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," pp. 63-64.
16. Skinner, "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," pp. 75-76 The term Skinner uses is meaningy which he distinguishes from the plain meaning of the words and "meaning for me."
17. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," p. 48;
18. cf. "Some Problems," p. 102
19. Skinner, "Reply," pp. 284-285
20. Tully, "Pen is a Mighty Sword," pp. 8-9.
21. Skinner, "A Reply," p. 271.
22. Ibid., p. 275.
23. The Engagement controversy (1650-54) was a dispute over the oath of loyalty or "Engagement" required by the Commonwealth government; it quickly blossomed into a debate on the legitimacy of the government itself.
24. Skinner, "Conquest and Consent: Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement Controversy," The Interregnum: The Quest for Settlement 1646-1660, ed. G.E. Aylmer (London: Macmillan, 1974), pp. 79-93.
25. Ibid., p. 94.
26. Ibid., p. 97.
27. Skinner, "Thomas Hobbes on the Proper Signification of Liberty," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, no.40 [1990], p. 150.
28. Ibid., p. 145.
29. Only in a footnote does Skinner acknowledge that he first articulated the de facto interpretation, downplaying his role almost to the point of disingenuity (ibid., n. 155).
30. Ibid., p. 149. The claim that Hobbes's view of political obligation changes significantly in Leviathan could be strongly disputed.
31. Skinner, "Conquest and Consent," pp. 94-96.
32. M. M. Goldsmith, "Hobbes's Ambiguous Politics," History of Political Thought 9 (1990): 640-41;
33. Philip Milton, "Did Hobbes Translate De Cive?" History of Political Thought 9 (1990);
34. Richard Tuck, "Introduction," Thomas Hobbes, On the Citizen, ed. Tuck and Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
35. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. xvi.
36. Glenn Burgess, "Contexts for the Writing and Publication of Hobbes's Leviathan," History of Political Thought 9 (1990), pp. 676-77;
37. cf. Richard Tuck,Hobbes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 27, on the writing schedule.
38. Jonathan M. Wiener, "Quentin Skinner's Hobbes," Political Theory 2 (1974): 256;
39. cf. Burgess, "Contexts."
40. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. 361.
41. Ibid., pp. 291,350, 354, and 362 for some other examples.
42. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," p. 34ff;
43. cf. Minogue, "Method in Intellectual History," pp. 179-180
44. Skinner, "Some Problems," pp. 103,107.
45. Skinner, "A Reply/' p. 275.
46. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, pp. 271, 274.
47. Dan Herzog, "Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes/' Political Theory 25 (1997): 895.
48. Miller and Strong, "Meanings and Contexts," p. 343;
49. cf. Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Its Basis and Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952).
50. William Walker, "Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes," Philosophy and Literature 21 (1997): 206.
51. Skinner devotes three paragraphs and a few footnotes to the subject (Reason and Rhetoric, pp. 66-67).
52. Deborah Shuger, "Sacred Rhetoric in the Renaissance," Renaissance-Rhetorik, ed. Heinrich F. Plett (Berlin: Walter de Bruyter, 1993), pp. 123,152-53.
53. Victoria Silver, "Hobbes on Rhetoric," The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, ed. Tom Sorel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 338.
54. Skinner, "Ideological Context," pp. 293-294, 303-12;
55. "Conquest and Consent/' pp. 81-93;
56. "Context of Hobbes's Theory," pp. 110-114
57. Parliament considered Hobbes's work on blasphemy charges in 1657 and 1666. Skinner's claim that these charges hurt Hobbes's image and discouraged citation of his work, thus concealing its true influence and relation to the Engagement debate, is anachronistic. Besides, it is difficult to square Skinner's reports of Hobbes's "notoriety" and "unspeakably dangerous" doctrines with his claim that Hobbes was popular and well-respected at home. Skinner cites Eachard, who wrote 28 years after the controversy, on Hobbes's popularity; all the authors cited there wrote after 1665, making their views irrelevant to Hobbes's stature in the early 1650s.
58. Conal Condren, The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 138-139
59. Burgess, "Contexts," pp. 679-695 Publication of Leviathan in 1651 caused confusion and misunderstanding of Hobbes's intentions. Until then, Hobbes was always seen as a good (if clever) royalist. "Leviathan was at best extremely tepid in its allegiance to Engagement theory, and any links between Hobbes and the Engagers were made contrary to his will, and to his embarrassment" (ibid.).
60. Goldsmith, "Hobbes's Politics," pp. 640-41;
61. Burgess, "Contexts," p. 696.
62. Skinner, "Context of Hobbes's Theory," pp. 137-138
63. Bramhall attacks Hobbes's theory as "dog's play"-always taking the side of the stronger. "It seemeth T.H. did 'take' his soveraign 'for better' but not 'for worse'" Qohn Bramhall, Castigations of Mr. Hobbes [New York: Garland, 1977], pp. 557-558). Bramhall blasts Hobbes's theology, politics, and timing but never challenges his royalist bona fides.
64. By focusing on how Leviathan was received and used, rather than on the ideological context which allegedly shaped it, Skinner may overstate the theoretical importance of Engagement altogether (Lotte Mulligan, Judith Richards, and John Graham, "Intentions and Conventions: A Critique of Quentin Skinner's Method for the Study of the History of Ideas," Political Studies 27 [1979]: 95).
65. According to Wallace, the Engagement was not particularly shocking, coming in the wake of the Solemn League and Covenant (See Maurice Ashley, The English Civil War, rev. ed. [Gloucester, 1990], p. 89);
66. those who took the oath did so with the understanding that the illegal government was temporary. Most people took the pledge and most would not have hesitated to break it if the opportunity arose (John M. Wallace, "The Engagement Controversy 1649-53: An Annotated List of Pamphlets," Bulletin of the New York Public Library 68 [1964]: 385-89).
67. Even Bramhall recognized that, as a practical matter, loyalists should submit (Bramhall, Castigations, pp. 543-44).
68. Tully, "Pen is a Mighty Sword," p. 12.
69. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," p. 65;
70. "Some Problems," p. 103;
71. "A Reply," pp. 274-75.
72. Skinner, "A Reply," pp. 274-275
73. Skinner's discussion of the possibility of warning someone unintentionally (Skinner, "A Reply," pp. 264-65) makes this slippage clear. 53.1 take up this problem of certainty below. Thanks to Perry Anderson and to referees at the Review for help on these points.
74. Conal Condren, The Language of Politics in Seventeenth Century England (London: St. Martin's Press, 1994), pp. 10-11.
75. Skinner, "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," p. 78.
76. Ibid., pp. 77-78;
77. cf. "A Reply," 278.
78. Skinner, "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," pp. 77-78.
79. The exceptional cases are those involving ritual actions (Skinner, '"Social Meaning/" pp. 93-94).
80. Skinner, "The Principles and Practice of Opposition; The Case of Bolingbroke versus Walpole," Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society in Honour ofJ.H. Plumb, ed. Neil McKendrick (London: Europa, 1974), pp. 108-129, esp. 124ff.
81. Skinner, "Some Problems," p. 108.
82. Skinner, "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," p. 73.
83. Ibid., p. 78.
84. Hobbes, Considerations Upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes in English Works, 4: 418.
85. Hobbes spent most of his life in the service of the staunchly royalist Cavendish family. He helped collect the Forced Loan and stood for Parliament at Newcastle's behest in 1640. In 1646, he became the mathematics tutor of the Prince of Wales (later Charles II). After the Restoration in 1660, the king received Hobbes warmly at court, even granting him for a time the substantial salary of £100. Charles also helped Hobbes quash atheism charges in Parliament in 1666 (Tuck, Hobbes, p. 25;
86. Arnold Rogow, Thomas Hobbes: Radical in the Service of Reaction [New York: W.W. Norton,1986], p. 206;
87. Noel Malcolm, "A Summary Biography of Hobbes," The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, p. 36
88. Cf. Skinner, "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," p. 77. 65.1 am grateful to a referee at the Review for help on this point.
89. "Blunderers, whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole, make two or three real ones" (Bramhall, Castigations, p. 544).
90. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. 11.
91. Ibid., pp. 217(1., 221ff., 226ffv 238-40, 244ff.
92. Ibid., pp. 242-243
93. Ibid., p. 256.
94. Ibid., pp. 289-290
95. Ibid., pp. 3-4.
96. Ibid., pp. 250-326.
97. Hobbes, "On the Life and History of Thucydides/' Hobbes's Thucydides, ed. Richard Schlatter (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1975), pp. 12-13.
98. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, ed. Ferdinand Tonnies, 2ed. (London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1969), p. 178;
99. cf. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. 3
100. Hobbes, On the Citizen, p. 139.
101. Martinich, "Reasonand Rhetoric," p. 150 documents this "tendentious" proclivity.
102. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. 351; cf. p. 4.
103. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 151
104. David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 61.
105. John G. Gunnell, Political Theory: Tradition and Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, 1979), p. 102;
106. cf. Charles D. Tarlton, "Historicity, Meaning, and Revisionism in the Study of Political Thought," History and Theory 12 (1973): 312.
107. Gunnell, Political Theory, pp. 102,122.
108. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," p. 64;
109. cf. "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," p. 77.
110. Skinner, "A Reply," p. 280.
111. Ibid., p. 279.
112. Skinner, "Ideological Context," p. 313.
113. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. 8 (emphasis added).
114. See also '"Social Meaning,'" p. 95;
115. "Some Problems," p. 104.
116. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," pp. 57-59
117. Ibid..
118. Ibid., p. 63.
119. Ibid., p. 64.
120. Skinner, "A Reply," p. 232.
121. Skinner, "Hobbes's Leviathan," Historical journal 7 (1964): 333.
122. For Skinner's complaints with the contemporary Hobbes scholarship see "The Context of Hobbes's Theory of Political Obligation," Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical Essays, eds. Maurice Cranston and Richard S. Peters (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1972).
123. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," p. 29.
124. Gunnell, Political Theory, p. 103.
125. Minogue, "Method in Intellectual History," 178;
126. cf. Skinner, "A Reply," p. 234.
127. Skinner, "A Reply," p. 234.
128. Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism, pp. 108-9;
129. "A Reply," p. 232.
130. Skinner, "Some Problems," p. 102;
131. "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," p. 70;
132. "Reply," p. 272. Skinner ridicules the idea of "meaning for me" as a "consumer-oriented study of 'reader response'"(2Wd).
133. Skinner, "Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation," p. 70.
134. Skinner "A Reply," p. 286, summarizes these charges.
135. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding," p. 67;
136. "AReply," p. 287;
137. cf. Liberty Before Liberalism, p. 107;
138. Reason and Rhetoric, p. 15.
139. Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism, p. 117-118
140. Bernard Crick, "Liberty Before Liberalism," Political Quarterly 69 (1998): 326.
141. Herzog, "Reason and Rhetoric," p. 895.
142. Cf. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. 16. Skinner hopes to convey "something of the attractions of [humanism's]... accounts of rationality and moral argument" and to raise "anew the question of which [philosophical] style is more deserving of our intellectual allegiances." This is largely a rhetorical question.
143. Tully, "Pen is a Mighty Sword," p. 17.
144. Skinner and other Cambridge school theorists have similarly reinterpreted Machiavelli, Locke, Harrington, and others.
145. This is not to take any position on whether these views do in fact require reexamination.