The Priority of Paradigms: The Pocock Alternative

Abstract

In this chapter I maintain that Pocock represents a further move away from the traditional concerns of previous historians of political thought. In the case of Greenleaf we saw how a theoretical understanding of the traditions of political thought was considered to be a prerequisite to the understanding of any particular text. Individual authors contributed to, and were illustrative of, particular traditions. Traditions are the wholes to which texts are related and implicated, and in which written discourse reveals its full meaning. Traditions are the appropriate units of historical study. It is my contention that Pocock can be viewed as refining and extending this idea to the point where individual texts are of secondary importance in coming to understand the languages which they employ. The languages are the primary focus of attention; individual authors are of importance because they use and modify them. A language of discourse is never the intentional or unintentional creation of any particular thinker, yet it may incorporate the entire vocabulary and range of argumentation used by a writer on any occasion. The language is prior to the speaker.