History Of Political Thought Research Articles

The Triumvirate of the Cambridge School: Pocock’s, Dunn’s and Skinner’s Methodological Articles on the History of Political Thought, 1962‐1969

The Cambridge School of the history of political thought exists as a tradition of teaching in the History Faculty of Cambridge University, and as a set of works including famous books such as The Political Thought of John Locke, The Machiavellian Moment and The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. It acquired its distinctive status because of three methodological articles written in the 1960s by the triumvirate of J.G.A. Pocock, John Dunn and Quentin Skinner. These articles are usually assimilated to each other. No doubt there was much consonance between the three articles. But I demonstrate through a close reading of the three articles that each author placed a very different emphasis on the status and purpose of the history of political thought, and that the differences between the articles help to explain the remarkable differences in the subsequent writings of the authors from the late 1960s onwards. This article is not part of the recent tendency to study the thought of the last fifty years historically, though it may of course be a preliminary to that. My concern is textual, not contextual. This article should interest anyone concerned with the question of the relevance of historiography, the history of ideas and the history of political thought to the study of politics.

THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THOMAS HOBBES' THOUGHT

The article deals with the relationship between religion and politics in the context of Thomas Hobbes' elaboration of political theory, mainly in his works The Citizen (1642), Leviathan (1651), Behemoth or the Long Parliament (1680), in his Historical Account of Heresy and the Forms of Its Punishment (1680), as well as in works on the History of Political Thought, Church History and the History of Theology. The main purpose of the text is to demonstrate how the ecclesiastical institution controlled religion, politics, law and mentalities for several centuries, exercising undue dominance over society. In this way, it is as inevitable as it is partial to say that the Church has been de-characterizing itself as the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World, and has become what Hobbes called the Kingdom of Darkness in the last part of his Leviathan. Influenced by the thinking of Luther and Calvin, the scholar Thomas Hobbes contributed to the definitive separation of Church and State, and although he is known as an advocate of authoritarianism, he stated that when the sovereign cannot guarantee civil peace, he should not be obeyed, because the State was designed for our peace and defense.

Introduction: The Crowd in the History of Political Thought—A Conversation in a Socratic Spirit

AbstractThe article introduces a symposium, “The Crowd in the History of Political Thought,” which is being published as a two-part special issue. The articles are by American and European scholars with disparate interests and approaches to the history of political thought. Some engage contemporary questions, while others offer interpretive analyses. Today, commentators, scholars, and pundits alike ignore the history of political thought to the detriment of their understanding of populism. Many thinkers have reflected on democratic health and sickness. The articles here furnish a partial catalog of the quarrels associated with this inherited vocabulary. The tradition itself is best conceived of as an unfinished Socratic conversation. In this issue, articles on Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato, and Aristotle orbit the original democracy at Athens, the backdrop for reflections on popular rule of so many thinkers. The final article on Josephus moves away from the experience of the Greek polis toward the more contemporary preoccupations of the second issue.

Rethinking War, Nature, and Supernature in Early Modern Scholasticism: Introduction.

The History of Political Thought is a discipline which is very closely aligned with the Anglophone liberal political tradition. It has not, consequently, ever had very much to say about warfare. Richard Tuck's important research marks an exception in this field, but Tuck's work is marked by significant omissions. He defined Catholic scholasticism too narrowly, omitting the Franciscan followers of John Duns Scotus, and excluded Protestant scholasticism (except the work of Hugo Grotius) entirely from consideration. Remedying these omissions leaves us with an early modern theorization of war that appears much less ripe for secularization than scholars have previously supposed.

‘The History of Political Thought Above All’

Abstract Well-known for his work on absolutism, divine right theory, and his contextual reading of Hobbes’ ideas, Sommerville also published successful critical editions of Sir Robert Filmer and King James vi and I’s political writing. Sommerville’s engagement in key historiographical debates on early- modern British history, involving “opposing camps” of revisionists and post-revisionists, is less explored. Here, I focus on the question whether pre-Civil War England was immune to ideological conflict or, instead, featured a confrontation between King and Parliament based on ideas of power, liberty and obedience. I also highlight the continued relevance of Sommerville’s innovative account of English political thought as deeply shaped by European theories. His work reminds us of the role of the history of political thought in rectifying false claims and unchecked opinions, so commonly expounded in our divided world. In conclusion, I advance my own critical interpretation of Sommerville’s views on absolutism and patriarchalism.

Georg Lukács and Revolutionary Realpolitik, 1918-19: An Essay on Ethical Action, Historical Judgment, and the History of Political Thought.

"Bolshevism as a Moral Problem" and "Tactics and Ethics" were discussions of political ethics closely related to Max Weber's contemporaneous "Politics as a Vocation." They diverged from one another in their historical assessments of possibilities for ethically responsible revolutionary action. They are best understood as developments of an approach to political judgment originally forged by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose concerns were associated by Weber with Realpolitik and which continue to animate discussions of "political realism." Overwriting these concerns as transitional moments in personal conversion narratives or the history of political thought has an inhibiting effect on historical and political judgment.

The methodological program of John Pocock in the paradigm of the approaches of the Cambridge School of Intellectual History of Political Thought

The methodological program of John Pocock in the paradigm of the approaches of the Cambridge School of Intellectual History of Political Thought

Women and the Politics of Incivility and Discrimination: Introduction

Women and the Politics of Incivility and Discrimination: Introduction

Widening the idea of profit in the Hobbesian eight bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre?

ABSTRACT Scholars have analysed in-depth the famous three greatest things linking Thomas Hobbes and Thucydides. As is well known, the ideas of fear, honour and profit – that is, timé, déos (and phóbos) and opheléia (or opheléia) – play a fundamental role in showing the latter’s influences on the former. With particular regard to ophelía it has been suggested that it has to be conceived ‘as economic advantage or interest’ [Slomp Gabriella, ‘Hobbes, Thucydides and the Three Greatest Things’, History of Political Thought 11 (1990): 565–86]. Since Thucydides’ lexicon uses several words in addition to opheléia to express the idea of profit, the essay, through a comparative lexical analysis of the original Greek text and its Hobbesian translation, will take these into consideration, in order to find out if they can provide us with elements capable of widening the above definition. All this to better clarify the notion of profit, a notion that is truly crucial in Hobbes’ political thought.

State of the Field: The History of Political Thought

AbstractThis article surveys the state of the field of the history of political thought. The premise of the discipline is that political arguments and ideas have developed historically and thus have theoretical histories that can be located and traced. But, as our survey of the field shows, what counts as ‘context’ is up for debate, and contextual methods have become more sensitive to present‐day concerns. The border between the history of political thought and political theory is increasingly porous. We begin with some of the main claims and criticisms of the ‘Cambridge’ method of political thought, chiefly associated with Quentin Skinner, John Dunn and J. G. A. Pocock. We then consider newer developments, such as the ‘global turn’, which have steered the discipline beyond its traditionally European or male subject matter. While this shift in direction is welcome, we caution against a history that abstracts away from local sites of political contestation. Finally, we stress that (Western) historians moving beyond the West have even more reason to stay conscious of their own linguistic and cultural limitations.

Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art. By Daniel J. Kapust. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 238p. $99.99 cloth.

Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art. By Daniel J. Kapust. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 238p. $99.99 cloth.

A response to Samuel James’s ‘J. G. A. Pocock and the Idea of the “Cambridge School” in the History of Political Thought’

This is a very able piece; Samuel James has done a great deal of research, and brought to light a number of articles I don’t remember writing. There is a difficulty, however, that he aims to contra...

The Cambridge School and Kripke: Bug Detecting with the History of Political Thought

AbstractWe propose a two-step method for studying the history of political thought roughly in line with the contextualism of the Cambridge School. It reframes the early Cambridge School as a bug-detecting program for the outdated conceptual baggage we unknowingly accommodate with our political terminology. Such accommodation often entails propositions that are inconsistent with even our most cherished political opinions. These bugs can cause political arguments to crash. This reframing takes seriously the importance of theories of meaning in the formative methodological arguments of the Cambridge School and updates the argument in light of new developments. We argue the new orthodoxy of Saul Kripke's causal theory of meaning in the philosophy of language better demonstrates the importance of contextual analysis to modern political theory.

Adam Smith and the Vocabulary of Liberty: Two Views

Economic AffairsVolume 38, Issue 3 p. 447-455 Review Article Adam Smith and the Vocabulary of Liberty: Two Views Alberto Mingardi, Corresponding Author Alberto Mingardi Lecturer in History of Political Thought, Director General, Presidential Fellow alberto.mingardi@iulm.it Lecturer, IULM University, Milan; Director General of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Milan; Presidential Fellow in Political Theory, Chapman University, USA. Email: alberto.mingardi@iulm.itSearch for more papers by this author Alberto Mingardi, Corresponding Author Alberto Mingardi Lecturer in History of Political Thought, Director General, Presidential Fellow alberto.mingardi@iulm.it Lecturer, IULM University, Milan; Director General of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Milan; Presidential Fellow in Political Theory, Chapman University, USA. Email: alberto.mingardi@iulm.itSearch for more papers by this author First published: 18 October 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/ecaf.12315Citations: 1 Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume38, Issue3October 2018Pages 447-455 RelatedInformation

J.G.A. Pocock and the idea of the ‘Cambridge School’ in the history of political thought

ABSTRACTThis article offers a reinterpretation of the origins and character of the so-called ‘Cambridge School’ in the history of political thought by reconstructing the intellectual background to J.G.A. Pocock's 1962 essay ‘The History of Political Thought: A Methodological Enquiry’, typically regarded as the first statement of a ‘Cambridge’ approach. I argue that neither linguistic philosophy nor the celebrated work of Peter Laslett exerted a major influence on Pocock's work between 1948 and 1962. Instead, I emphasise the importance of Pocock's interest in the history of historiography and of his doctoral supervisor, Herbert Butterfield. By placing Pocock's intellectual development in these contexts, I suggest, the autonomy of diverse versions of the ‘Cambridge’ approach can more readily be perceived.

이해(Understanding)’와 ‘생활사(Everyday life)’로서의 정치사상사 연구 : 와타나베 히로시(渡辺浩), 『일본정치사상사: 17-19세기』에 대한 논평

이해(Understanding)’와 ‘생활사(Everyday life)’로서의 정치사상사 연구 : 와타나베 히로시(渡辺浩), 『일본정치사상사: 17-19세기』에 대한 논평

Freedom's Progress? A History of Political Thought

Freedom's Progress? A History of Political Thought. By Gerard Casey (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2017), pp. × + 960. £45.00 (hb).

Wheat or Tare? Roger Williams in the History of Political Thought - Teresa M. Bejan: Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. Pp. 272.)

Wheat or Tare? Roger Williams in the History of Political Thought - Teresa M. Bejan: Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. Pp. 272.)

정치사상사에서의 인과적 설명 : 화행 분석에 대한 인과적 메커니즘의 적용가능성

정치사상사에서의 인과적 설명 : 화행 분석에 대한 인과적 메커니즘의 적용가능성

A World History of Political Thought. By Antony Black (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), xvi + 260 pp. £44.00 cloth.

<b>A World History of Political Thought</b>. By Antony Black (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), xvi + 260 pp. £44.00 cloth.