Quentin Skinner

Quentin Skinner (born November 26, 1940, Oldham, England) is a British historian of modern political thought, best known for his work on the methodology of historical research, republicanism, and the political theories of Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes.

Education and career

Skinner’s father was a colonial administrator and his mother a former schoolteacher. Skinner studied history at Gonville & Caius College at the University of Cambridge, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1962 and a master’s degree in 1965. He remained at his alma mater for most of his career. He served as an assistant lecturer and a lecturer in history at Cambridge from 1965 to 1974 and was a fellow of Christ’s College from 1962 to 2008. After spending five years as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (1974–79), Skinner resumed his teaching at Cambridge as a professor of social and political theory (1979) and later as Regius Professor of Modern History (1996–2008). In 2008 he was appointed Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. Skinner also held numerous visiting appointments, including at the Australian National University (1970, 1989, 1994), Harvard University (2008), and the Collège de France (1997).

Methodological contextualism

Skinner’s magnum opus, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978), is regarded as a classic of intellectual history, as much for its contribution to historiographic methodology as for the nuanced treatment of its subject, the interplay of political thought and action during the European Renaissance and Reformation. Skinner emphasized the importance of placing texts in their historical setting and thus departed from the traditional method in political theory, which consisted in tracing the progression of classic texts and examining each work in relation to the canon of Western political thought. Skinner’s contextual approach, which he shared with John G.A. Pocock, John Dunn, and others, came to be known as the Cambridge school of intellectual history.

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Skinner first expanded the object of intellectual history beyond the canon by introducing into his studies lesser-known writers and minor documents such as letters and pamphlets. Drawing from the British philosopher J.L. Austin’s speech act theory, he argued that the historian must analyze not only what the author of a political document meant (the locutionary meaning of the document) but also what the author was “doing” in writing it (its illocutionary meaning). As a speech act, the meaning of the document is inextricably connected to its historical context. To uncover the illocutionary meaning of a political document, the historian must therefore bring the analysis beyond the document itself and consider such things as the debate to which it contributed, the authors it was responding to, and the mores or conventions it was upholding or challenging. Skinner was particularly attentive to the ideological function of political ideas, or their capacity to legitimize certain social structures, thereby enabling or constraining human action.

Skinner’s approach was also distinct in its appreciation of political life. He did not study political documents in order to inquire into a more primordial realm of social reality (the dynamics of social class, for instance) or as an entryway into philosophical debates. Instead, he regarded politics as itself an important and distinct field of human reality. Whereas other theorists tended to reflect on normative principles and their application and influence in the realm of politics, Skinner began his inquiry with political thinking itself. In so doing, his work overturned the traditional primacy of principles over action. He studied political thinkers as genuine agents of history rather than as mere mouthpieces in the history of ideas. This approach led some scholars, such as Kari Palonen, to suggest that the “Skinnerian Revolution” in intellectual history consisted not so much in its methodology as in its rehabilitation of political activity.

Republicanism and freedom

Skinner was a major figure in the revival of interest in republicanism, a tradition in political theory that emphasizes, among other things, individual freedom conceived of as a state of not being dependent on others. Although republicanism is as old as Roman antiquity, Skinner focused his analysis on the early modern period of European history, examining the importance of republican ideas in figures such as Machiavelli and John Milton. He contrasted the conception of freedom found in this tradition with the liberal conception of freedom championed by Hobbes in the 17th century, which eventually became dominant. As Hobbes understood it, freedom is simply the absence of interference: people are free if they are not constrained or hindered by other agents from achieving their attainable goals. Significantly, Hobbes’s definition is compatible with nondemocratic forms of government. People can be free even under the rule of an absolute monarch, because they are still at liberty to do anything that the sovereign has not forbidden. In Hobbes’s view, even slaves enjoy freedom when their master is not actively directing their actions, and they enjoy it even though they do so only at their master’s pleasure.

According to Skinner, Hobbes’s definition of freedom must be understood in the context of the English Civil Wars. Hobbes’s definition was a defense of royal prerogatives against those who argued (in support of Parliament) that to be dependent on the good will of a monarch is a form of servitude. Skinner criticized the liberal-Hobbesian tradition for being insensitive to the obstacles to human freedom that exist even in the absence of coercion or external impediment. Above all, he believed that the liberal tradition was insensitive to the relationship between dependency and unfreedom. Viewed from a republican perspective, freedom is fragile, since it is constrained not only by the imposition or threat of external interference but also by being dependent on the good will of others and by being aware of that dependence. Skinner traced the republican conception of freedom to Roman law and its definition of free citizens (in contrast to slaves) as those who do not live under the dominion of someone else and can thus act according to their own volition.

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Although the republican idea of freedom is formulated in the negative—i.e., as nondependence—it is inseparable from civic virtue, according to Skinner. Citing the British historian of ideas Sir Isaiah Berlin, Skinner argued that, from a republican standpoint, freedom is not secured by evading anything “more than the minimum demands of social life.” On the contrary, it can flourish only if citizens take seriously their mutual obligations, including their obligation to actively participate in the polity with the aim of promoting the common good. The connection between nondependence and civic participation is stressed in a version of republicanism sometimes referred to as civic republicanism.

Skinner’s fellow Cambridge historian Emile Perreau-Saussine pointed out that there is a tension between Skinner’s contextualist methodology and his civic-republican position. It is unclear whether a republican conception of freedom can be preferred to its liberal counterpart if their value can be assessed only relative to their historical context. Skinner argued that his project was not to replace one conception of freedom with another, as if they transcended history. Rather, he sought to unearth the republican conception of freedom in order to recover the lost political possibilities associated with it.

A prolific author, Skinner published more than 100 articles and books, which have been translated into numerous languages. His books include, in addition to those mentioned above, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (1996), Liberty Before Liberalism (1998), Visions of Politics (2002), and Hobbes and Republican Liberty (2008). Skinner was elected to many prestigious academic societies, including the Royal Historical Society (1971), the British Academy (1981), and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts (1996).