Quentin Skinner | |
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Born | Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner 26 November 1940 Oldham, England |
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Alma mater | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge |
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School or tradition | Cambridge School |
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Notable ideas | Cambridge School (intellectual history) |
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Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner FBA (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work,including the Wolfson History Prize in 1979 and the Balzan Prize in 2006. Between 1996 and 2008 he was Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. He is the Emeritus Professor of the Humanities and Co-director of The Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary University of London. [1] [2]
Quentin Skinner was born on 26 November 1940,the second son of Alexander Skinner (died 1979) and Winifred Skinner,née Duthie (died 1982). He was educated at Bedford School from the age of seven. Like his elder brother,he won an entrance scholarship to Gonville and Caius College,Cambridge,from where he graduated with a double-starred first in history in 1962. [3] Skinner was elected to a fellowship of his college on his examination results,but moved later in 1962 to a teaching fellowship at Christ's College,Cambridge,where he remained until moving to the University of London in 2008. He is now an Honorary Fellow of both Christ's College and Gonville and Caius College. [3]
Skinner was appointed to a lectureship in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge in 1965. [3] He spent a sabbatical year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1974–1975,where he was invited to stay,and where he remained until 1979,when he returned to Cambridge as Professor of Political Science. [3] He was appointed to the post of Regius Professor of History in 1996,and in 1999 as pro-vice-chancellor of the university. [3]
In 1979 he married Susan James,Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London. [4] They have a daughter and a son,and four grandchildren. He was previously married to Patricia Law Skinner,who was later married to the philosopher Bernard Williams. [5]
Skinner has held a number of visiting appointments. He has been Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Social Science at the Australian National University (1970,1994,2006);Visiting Professor at Washington University in St. Louis (1982);Directeur d’Etudes Associéat the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (1987);Professeur Associéat UniversitéParis X (1991);Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven (1992);Visiting Professor at Northwestern University (1995,2011);Professeur invitéat the Collège de France (1997);Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2003–04);Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University (2008);Laurence Rockefeller Visiting Professor at Princeton University (2013–14);Spinoza Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam (2014);Visiting Professor in the Global Fellowship programme at Peking University,Beijing (2017);and Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago (2017).
Skinner has delivered a number of named lecture series,including the Gauss Seminars at Princeton (1980),The Carlyle Lectures at Oxford (1980),The Messenger Lectures at Cornell (1983),The Tanner Lectures at Harvard (1984),the Ford Lectures at Oxford (2003),the Clarendon Lectures at Oxford (2011),the Clark Lectures at Cambridge (2012) and the Academia Sinica Lectures in Taiwan (2013). [6]
Skinner has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 1981, [6] and is also a foreign member of a number of national academies,including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1986), [6] the Academia Europaea (1989), [7] the American Philosophical Society (1997), [8] the Royal Irish Academy (1999), [9] the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (2007), [8] the Österreichische Academie der Wissenschaften (2009),and the Royal Danish Academy (2015). [6] He has been the recipient of Honorary Degrees from the University of Aberdeen,University of Athens,University of Chicago,University of Copenhagen,University of East Anglia,Harvard University,University of Helsinki,Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,University of Kent,University of Oslo,University of Oxford,Adolfo Ibáñez University (Santiago),University of St Andrews and Uppsala University. [8] He was awarded the Wolfson History Prize in 1979,the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize of the British Political Studies Association in 2006,the Benjamin Lippincott Award (2001),the David Easton Award (2007) of the American Political Science Association,the Bielefeld Science Award (2008) and a Balzan Prize (2006). [8] From 2009 until 2020,he was a member of the Balzan Prize Committee. [10] [11]
Skinner is regarded as one of the founders of the 'Cambridge School' of the history of political thought,best known for its attention to what J. G. A. Pocock has described as the 'languages' in which moral and political philosophy has been written. [12] Skinner's contribution has been to articulate a theory of interpretation in which leading texts in the history of political theory are treated essentially as interventions in on-going political debates,and in which the main focus is on what individual writers may be said to have been doing in what they wrote. [13]
This emphasis on political writing as a form of action derives from developments in ordinary language philosophy made by Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin. [14] [15] Wittgenstein's insight was (in Skinner’s words) "that we should stop asking about the 'meanings' of words and focus instead on the various functions they are capable of performing in different language games". [16] Skinner takes Austin to have extended Wittgenstein's argument in isolating the concept of a speech act,which is described by Skinner as the notion that "whenever we use language for purposes of communication,we are always doing something as well as saying something". [17] According to Skinner,that means that any analysis is incomplete if it restricts itself to studying what a past thinker said on a given issue. Historians must also recover what a thinker hoped to achieve in saying it. [18]
Skinner consequently proposes a form of linguistic contextualization that involves situating a text in relation to other texts and discourses. In that perspective,the text is a response to other thinkers,texts or cultural discourses. Skinner believes that ideas,arguments and texts should be placed in their original context. One consequence of this view is an emphasis on the necessity of studying less well-known political writers as a means of shedding light on the contemporary debates these classic texts contributed to. In that way,it becomes possible to decipher the original purpose of a text. To Skinner,texts are then seen as weapons or tools that can,for example,be used to support,discredit,or legitimize specific social and political arrangements. [19] In its earlier versions this added up to a critique of the approach of an older generation,and particularly of Leo Strauss and his followers. [13]
Skinner's historical work has mainly focused on political thinking in early-modern Europe. He has written a book on NiccolòMachiavelli,three books on Thomas Hobbes,and his Foundations of Modern Political Thought covers the whole period. He has specifically been concerned with the emergence of modern theories about the nature of the state,and with debates about the nature of political liberty. [8]
When Skinner was interviewed by Alan Macfarlane,as part of his series of online conversations with academics,Skinner admitted that he had been a member of the Cambridge Apostles,a secret debating society in Cambridge University. He also revealed that Amartya Sen was a member at the same time. Sen mentioned their membership of the Apostles in his memoir Home in the World. [20] He commented that they had both been "outed" in a book published about the Apostles some time before. [21]
On 6 October 1995,Skinner's Foundations of Modern Political Thought was included in the list published by The Times Literary Supplement of 'The 100 Most Influential Books since World War II'. [22]
On 14 May 2009, Times Higher Education ,in an article about Skinner's move from Cambridge to the University of London,spoke of Skinner's republicanism,reporting that this led him to refuse a knighthood he was offered when he became Regius Professor of History at Cambridge. [23]
The Balzan-Skinner Lectureship,renamed the "Quentin Skinner Fellowship in Intellectual History since 1500",was established in 2009 at the University of Cambridge. The Quentin Skinner fellow holds a visiting fellowship at the Centre for Research in the Arts,Social Sciences and Humanities for one term of the academic year,which culminates in the Quentin Skinner Lecture and an associated symposium. [24]
1. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume I: The Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 978-0-521-29337-2 (Translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish.)
2. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume II: The Age of Reformation, Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 978-0-521-29435-5 (Translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.)
3(a). Machiavelli, Oxford University Press, 1981.
3(b). Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction [A revised version of 3(a)], Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-19-285407-0 (Translated into Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Malay, Polish, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.)
3(c). Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction [a new and updated edition of 3(b)], Oxford University Press, 2019. ISBN 978-0-19-883757-2
4. Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-521-59645-9 (Translated into Chinese, Italian, Portuguese.)
5. Liberty before Liberalism, Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-1-107-68953-4 (Translated into Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.)
6. Visions of Politics: Volume I: Regarding Method, Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-521-58926-0 (Translated into Chinese, French, Italian, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish.)
7. Visions of Politics: Volume II: Renaissance Virtues (with 12 colour plates), Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-521-58926-0 (Translated into Italian.)
8. Visions of Politics: Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science, Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-521-89060-1
9. L’artiste en philosophie politique (with 8 colour plates), Editions de Seuil, Paris, 2003. ISBN 978-2-912107-15-2
10. Hobbes and Republican Liberty (with 19 illustrations), Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-2-912107-15-2 (Translated into Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish.)
11. La verité et l’historien, ed. Christopher Hamel, Editions EHESS, Paris, 2011. ISBN 978-2-7132-2368-6
12. Die drei Körper des Staates, Wallstein, Göttingen, 2012. ISBN 978-3-8353-1157-2
13. Forensic Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-19-955824-7
14. From Humanism to Hobbes: Studies in Rhetoric and Politics (with 45 illustrations), Cambridge University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-107-56936-2
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince, written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science.
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, theology, and ethics, as well as philosophy in general. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy.
Sir Isaiah Berlin was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy.
Adam Ferguson,, also known as Ferguson of Raith, was a Scottish philosopher and historian of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissance—in the Age of Reason of 17th-century thought and the 18th-century Enlightenment. Some commentators consider the era of modernity to have ended by 1930, with World War II in 1945, or the 1980s or 1990s; the following era is called postmodernity. The term "contemporary history" is also used to refer to the post-1945 timeframe, without assigning it to either the modern or postmodern era.
Charles Margrave Taylor is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and professor emeritus at McGill University best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, the history of philosophy, and intellectual history. His work has earned him the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize.
Ian MacDougall Hacking was a Canadian philosopher specializing in the philosophy of science. Throughout his career, he won numerous awards, such as the Killam Prize for the Humanities and the Balzan Prize, and was a member of many prestigious groups, including the Order of Canada, the Royal Society of Canada and the British Academy.
Early modern philosophy is a period in the history of philosophy that overlaps with the beginning of the period known as modern philosophy.
Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.
Classical republicanism, also known as civic republicanism or civic humanism, is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity, especially such classical writers as Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero. Classical republicanism is built around concepts such as liberty as non-domination, self-government, rule of law, property-based personality, anti-corruption, abolition of monarchy, civics, civil society, common good, civic virtue, popular sovereignty, patriotism and mixed government.
John Greville Agard Pocock is a New Zealand historian of political thought. He is especially known for his studies of republicanism in the early modern period, his work on the history of English common law, his treatment of Edward Gibbon and other Enlightenment historians, and, in historical method, for his contributions to the history of political discourse.
Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah was a social anthropologist and Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor (Emeritus) of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specialised in studies of Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Tamils, as well as the anthropology of religion and politics.
Alan James Ryan is a British philosopher. He was Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford. He was also Warden of New College, Oxford, from 1996 to 2009. He retired as Professor Emeritus in September 2015 and lives in Summertown, Oxford.
Virtù is a concept theorized by Niccolò Machiavelli, centered on the martial spirit and ability of a population or leader, but also encompassing a broader collection of traits necessary for maintenance of the state and "the achievement of great things."
Classical realism is an international relations theory from the realist school of thought. Realism makes the following assumptions: states are the main actors in the international relations system, there is no supranational international authority, states act in their own self-interest, and states want power for self-preservation. Classical realism differs from other forms of realism in that it places specific emphasis on human nature and domestic politics as the key factor in explaining state behavior and the causes of inter-state conflict. Classical realist theory adopts a pessimistic view of human nature and argues that humans are not inherently benevolent but instead they are self-interested and act out of fear or aggression. Furthermore, it emphasizes that this human nature is reflected by states in international politics due to international anarchy.
William Rand was an English physician who projected general reforms in medical education, practice and publication. His views were Paracelsian and Helmontian, and he participated in the Hartlib Circle.
In intellectual history and the history of political thought, the Cambridge School is a loose historiographical movement traditionally associated with the University of Cambridge, where many of those associated with the school held or continue to hold academic positions, including Quentin Skinner, J. G. A. Pocock, Peter Laslett, John Dunn, James Tully, David Runciman, and Raymond Geuss.
Richard Bourke is a UK-based Irish academic specialising in the history of political ideas. His work spans ancient and modern thought, and is associated with the application of the historical method to political theory. He is Professor of the History of Political Thought at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He was formerly Professor of the History of Political Thought and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary, University of London. In July 2018 Bourke was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).
David Ewart George Boucher FRHISTS FACSS FLSW is a Welsh political theorist and philosopher of international relations.
Tully, James, ed. (1988). Meaning and context: Quentin Skinner and his critics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691023014.
Palonen, Kari (2003). Quentin Skinner: history, politics, rhetoric. Cambridge, UK Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Blackwell. ISBN 9780745628578.
Palonen, Kari (2004). Die Entzauberung der Begriffe: das Umschreiben der politischen Begriffe bei Quentin Skinner und Reinhart Koselleck. Münster: Lit. ISBN 9783825872229.
Brett, Annabel; Tully, James, eds. (2006). Rethinking the foundations of modern political thought. Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521615037.
Bocardo Crespo, Enrique, ed. (2007). El Giro contextual: cinco ensayos de Quentin Skinner, y seis comentarios. Madrid, Spain: Tecnos. ISBN 9788430945504.
Muscolino, Salvatore (2012). Linguaggio, storia e politica: Ludwig Wittgenstein e Quentin Skinner. Palermo: Carlo Saladino editore. ISBN 9788895346175.
Erben, Marcus (2013). Begriffswandel als Sprachhandlung der Beitrag Quentin Skinners zur Methodologie und Funktionsbestimmung der pädagogischen Geschichtsschreibung. Frankfurt, Main, Germany: Lang-Ed. ISBN 9783631643556.
Grygieńć, Janusz, ed. (2016). Quentin Skinner: Metoda historyczna i wolność republikańska. Toruń: Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika. ISBN 978-83-231-3562-3.
Dawson, Hannah; de Dijn, Annelien, eds. (2022). Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108948395.