Quentin Skinner is one of the worlds leading historians. His work includes pioneering studies of Machiavelli and Hobbes, as well as important research on changing ideas of liberty and the state. His classic 1969 essay Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas was a ground-breaking challenge to prevailing ideas about how to read historical texts, and helped to found an influential school of interpretation. The essay is still the most widely read article in the area, and continues to breed debate. This book celebrates the 50th anniversary of Skinners seminal essay with chapters that offer constructive critiques and expansions of his ideas, drawing in part on developments in digital humanities, empirical social science, and other areas. We focus not just on theory but also practice: what are the practical implications of these arguments for other researchers? At the end of the book, Professor Skinner responds to these commentaries.
Skinner's Historical and Theoretical Foundations
1. Understanding Meaning and Understanding: Context, Content, And
Discontent, ADRIAN BLAU
2. Yet Another Contest of the Faculties? Quentin Skinner on Meaning and
Understanding in the History of Philosophy, JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON
3. Learning from the History of Political Thought: The Figure of the Cook in
Skinner, Passmore, Lenin, and Plato, MELISSA LANE
4. Quentin Skinner and the Historical Interpretation of Political
Philosophy, AL MARTINICH
Expanding Skinners Contexts
5. Meaning, Context, Interpretations in the Islamic Tradition:
Provincializing Skinnerian Contextualism, HUMEIRA IQTIDAR
6. Meaning And Understanding in the History of Ancient Greek Political
Thought, CAROL ATACK
7. Methods v. Purposes in Skinner: For a Textualist Approach to
Constitutional and Parliamentary Debates, ROCHANA BAJPAI
Ideology, Rhetoric and Language
8. Quentin Skinner and the Analysis of Ideology, JONATHAN LEADER MAYNARD
9. Ideological Innovation, Rhetorical Political Analysis and English Protest
Songs, ALAN FINLAYSON
10. How (Not) to Understand Nature: Margaret Cavendishs Response to the
Rhetorical Situation of the Scientific Revolutions, SOPHIA HATZISAVVIDOU
11. Quentin Skinners Approach from a Sociolinguistic Perspective, SALI
TAGLIAMONTE
Contextual Analysis in the Digital Age
12. Computational Methods in Intellectual History, MIKKO TOLONEN and YANN
RYAN
13. Contextual Analysis in the Computer Age: The Case of Hobbes, JACQUELINE
BASU and ALISON MCQUEEN
Response from Quentin Skinner
14. A Rejoinder, QUENTIN SKINNER
Adrian Blau is Professor of Politics at Kings College London. His research interests include the history of political thought and other issues in political theory/philosophy, including corruption, democracy and rationality.
