Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes

by Quentin Skinner

This major work from Quentin Skinner presents a fundamental reappraisal of the political theory of Hobbes. Using, for the first time, the full range of manuscript as well as printed sources, it documents an entirely new view of Hobbes' intellectual development, and reexamines the shift from a humanist to a scientific culture in European moral and political thought. By examining Hobbes' philosophy against the background of his humanist education, Professor Skinner rescues this most difficult and challenging of political philosophers from the intellectual isolation in which he is so often discussed.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Academic

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship upon obtaining a double-starred first in History, Quentin Skinner accepted, however, a teaching Fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he taught until 2008, except for four years in the 1970s spent at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1978 he was appointed to the chair of Political Science at Cambridge University, and subsequently regarded as one of the two principal members (along with J.G.A. Pocock) of the influential 'Cambridge School' of the history of political thought, best known for its attention to the 'languages' of political thought.

Skinner's primary interest in the 1970s and 1980s was the modern idea of the state, which resulted in two of his most highly regarded works, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume I: The Renaissance and The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume II: The Age of Reformation.

Reviews

[Philip Chaston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quentin Skinner charts Hobbes's fusion of rhetoric and science in the seventeenth century through Leviathan and Behemoth. This is the source of that spring: the style of reason and ridicule, a satirical bent to British philosophy, that has been learned and adopted within these shores. Know and undercut your opponent, savage their ideas and deem them mad, all undertaken with a leavening of wit.

Contrast this with the pithy offerings of social media.....grunting cavemen throwing rocks and hollering "Me right, you wrong"....a set of slogans and assertions endlessly repeated as if repetition equals truth. It didn't work for Mussolini or Mao! It won't work for them! The crooked timber of humanity..and all that