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Theory in Practice: Quentin Skinner's Hobbes, Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Michael Goodhart
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Extract

Quentin Skinner's method for studying the history of political thought has been widely and heatedly debated for decades. This article takes a new tack, offering a critique of Skinner's approach on the grounds he has himself established: consideration of his historical work as exemplifying the theory in practice. Three central assumptions of Skinner's method are briefly reviewed; each is then evaluated in the context of his writings on Hobbes. The analysis reveals problems and ambiguities in the specification and implementation of the method and in its underlying philosophy. The essay concludes by examining the broader practical and philosophical implications of adopting this approach to the study of political ideas: the method operationalizes a set of philosophical commitments that transforms ideological choices into questions of proper method.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , Summer 2000 , pp. 531 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2000

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References

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42 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.

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53 I take up this problem of certainty below. Thanks to Perry Anderson and to referees at the Review for help on these points.

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69 ibid., pp. 242–43.

70 ibid., p. 256.

71 ibid., pp. 289–90.

72 ibid., pp. 3–4.

73 ibid., pp. 250–326.

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107 Tully, , “Pen is a Mighty Sword,” p. 17.Google Scholar

108 Skinner and other Cambridge school theorists have similarly reinterpreted Machiavelli, Locke, Harrington, and others.

109 This is not to take any position on whether these views do in fact require reexamination.