lol l 2006 of Joumal I'ublicAtl'uirs lntcmationul

(Chair: John Dunn) Politicrl Philosophy: Past, Presentand Future l 6 : 1 0 -1 6 :-1 5 Ra -vmondGeuss "Historical Knorvledgeand PoliticalJudgment"

Presentat the Creation: With Laslett to the Lost Worlds J.GA. Pocock'
(i ) rerums to it in t shall explain the title of my paper as I go along; I shall need to make sevenl probably the Let me begin by saying that I am claiming geriatric privilege' I am is called panicipant in this conference, and I can remember events at the beginning oiwhat oldest ,.the cambridge school" to which there are now no living wimesses other than myself. That is why I ,.presentat the creation"; I was there when it all started,or so I can claim, irnd I have used the words c antel l as tor y ofhow i tbegan.other s w i l l re me mb e ro t h e rs t a rt i n g p o i n t s , a n d t h e i rn a rra t i v e s ar eas goodas m i ne;Idonotm eantoc ha l l e n g e w h a t t h e y w i l l re i a t e ' o rt o c l a i mt h a t t h e i rs t o ri e s were a number of"Cambridge could not have happened without the story I am about to tell There not all md the story ofthe "Cambridge school" is made up ofa number ofhappenings, moments," moment" I shall recall of them at cambridge. I am making two claims: first, that the "cambridge the history of this branch of occurred earlier in time than my other; second, that if you relate chaacter' different from that it research liom that moment, you give it a continuity, md perhaps a go on to tell the story receives if you begin relating it from another starting point' Let me' then' that I rememben year t arrived in The events I recall occuned in the years 1948 and 1949 ln the former Cambridgeirsaresearchstudent-thetermnowusedis..graduateSfudent''--fterspendingsix the University of years, lrst as a student and then as an assistant lectuer in history at what is now

, Ma sa Ya KobaYashi l 6 : .1 5 - i 7 :1 0 ..HistoricalRepublicanism History ofThought aDdPublic Philosophl'' and Neo-Republicanism: Z e 'e v Em m er ich l 7 : 10 --1 7 :3 5 "Skinner's critique of lmpure Reason-on the Value of the study of the llistory of ldeasbeyond Dialogicai Ethics and Postmodemism" the confinesof Communitarianism; l7:35- 17:45 l7:.15- l7:.18 l 7 : 48 - l 7 :,sl l 7 : 51 -1 8 :4 0 <Coffee Break> Istvan Hont S h i g e kiUno Q& A "Comment" "Comment"

order to do so.

l3th. December Session6 (9:45-12:05) Public Philosophy: Perspectivesfrom Asia (Chair: Atsushi Sugih) Na o shiYm awaki 9 : 4 5 -1 0 :1 0 .,ldea of ,,Glocal" Public Philosophy in the Unstable Age ofGlobalization" (Tenlative) S h i n Chiba l 0 : l 0 - l 0 :3 5 "Public Philosophy in Postwar Japan: In Focus on the PeaceConstilution"

T a e - Ch a n g Kim l0:3 5 - l l : 0 0 'On DoingPublicPhilosophy EastAsia' in < C o f fe e Br e a k> ll: 0 0 - l l : 1 0 I l: l0- I l: l3 l l: 1 3 - 11: 16 ll: 1 6 , - 1 2 : 0 5 12:05- 13:25 Dunn John Li Qiang Q&A <Lunch>
"Comment" "Comment"

CanterburyandwasthenaconstituentcollegeoftheUniversityofNewZealand(nowdissolved)' was a subsidiary discipline taught At Canterbury, studying a $ubject called political science which inthedepartmentofhistoryIhadreadaHistoryofPoliticalTheorybyGH.Sabine,andhadbeen it ever since-though this lascinated by its subject matter to a point where I have been studying conferenceistestimonytothefactthatthewaysinwhichSabinewrotitshistoryhavebeenalmost teaching philosophy at entirely replaced. lt may also be relevant that Karl Popper had been that I had heard him give the lectures which became The Canterbury dwing my snldent years, and Peter Mun4 become a Open Society and its Enemies. I did not, as did my older contemporary philosophy, and-perhaps in part because my father was disciple of Popper. I nver took a course in however remukable as nrofcssor of classics at Canterbury-l could see that The Open Society, what was going on in fouih-century Athens and the life philosophy, was not very good as history; path-braking figure; ltis impact on of Plato was not at all as Popper depicted it. Popper was a presenceto ther|: are ways in which his work has been a constant Canterbury was considerahlei and political philosophy' and when the me. But I learned philosophy only as history' the history of of philosophy' I lnve alwa]-'s claims of history on my attention have differed from those in the story I have to tell' unhesitatingly chosen to follow history. This will keep recuning

S!,sion7 (13:25-16:45) Summary (Chair: Masaya Kobayashi, Mon-Han Tsai) John Pocock, John Dunn' Raymond Geuss, Iswan Flont, l3:25-16;45 Conal Condren ( 1 4 :5 5 -1 5 :1 5 B re a k)

Closing Speech (16:45- I 7:00) Eiichi Akimoto and llumanities,chiba universily Dean,GraduateSchoolofSocial Sciences

Farervell Partv (t8:00-20:00)

USA' ' Professor ofhistory' Thc JohnsIlopkins LJnivcrsity' emeritus l}eCambridgcMoment:virtuc'llisloryud l'hispaperrvuprcsentcdatthcIntcmationalSymposium2005 Jdpan lloom.ChibaLiniversity' Conllrcnce 200i at Mulri-mcdia on euUfi"t't,ltoropi,y" I | - | 3 Deccmber -

.l (i,\. l'ocock By the time I applied to do doctorairesearch Cambridge,it did not occur to me to suggestanv at subjcctother than the history ofpolitical thought;but I alreadyknerv lhat this term includedwavs of thinking and ivriting about politics not confined to political philosophy.For reasonsI am not sure I rvhat I called the anti-Nomrnisrn' of the rerncrnber. menrionedas a possibleresearchsub.ject I English l-evellers.and this is probably why I leamedthat my research supenisor rvould be Herbcn Buncrtleld. The biographiesof Bunertleld that are beginning to appearemphasizeaspcctsof his intellcctualinterestsother than those fbr rvhich I knerv him. To me and others in 1947-.18 rvas he known as the author of The Whig lnterpretation History and Thc Eirglisiinran of and His History. Much has been witten about the supposed incompatibiliry of these two books; in my view unnecessarill', as since the word "Whig" is used in dillerent senses we pass lrom one to the other. lrnd they are concemedrvith difi-arent ofhistorical thought.lhe Whiq Interpretation is or.lanisations rvith historiesoftra,lition: in particularrvirh concemedwith historiesofprogress. Tlic lirrg)ishn:an Ihe scventeenth-century cult of what rvc :ro!v ieiilr the "ancient consiitution."The radical l-eveller thesis is meriioned, atrd perhaps that is how I came to propose research into it; Buttertield, however, wrote to me that this subject had already been studied, and suggested instead that I might look into the controversy about 1680, when Robert Brady had agued that ptrliament md common law develop:d in the Middle Ages, after English socieq' had been radically feudalized by the Noman Conquest. I followed his suggestion, and had already made one or two research discoveries<f which I shall speakin a moment-when I becameawareoftbe work of PeterLaslen. Laslett published,I think in s21!y 1949. m edition of Paaiarchaand Other Polirical Works by Sir Robert Filmer For mc if not for others, this is the true beginning of the study of political writings by assigning them to their proper contexts, rvh:ch is at the heart of what we call the "Cambridge" method of conducting this branch of political inquiry. lt emerged from Laslett's resefich that Patrircha had been written long before it was printed-we norv date it as early as 1630-while Filmer's odrer works were witten, and in some casespublished,about 1648. Filmer died in 1653 or 54, and his collected works, including for the first time Patriarch4 were published in 1679-80; it was this publication that provoked replies by John Locke, Algemon Sidney and others, which perpetuated Filmer's argument by attacking il. W'e had therefore to deal with three sets of intentions: those with which Filmer urote Patritrcha under Charles I, those with which he wote and published his other works dudng the revolutionary crisis of 1648, and those of the , individuals--iftheir idenrirycould be.ascertained-whohad collectedand publishedhis writings in the crisis produced by the attempt to exclude James Stuart fiom the succession to his brother's throne. We had also to deal !vith two, not three, sets ofreadings and responsesto Filmer's argument: could be not to Patriarchaas originally written, but to his works circa 1648 if any such response found, and to the posthumouspublicationof his works in I b80, with which we were probably most had occured: 1630, 1648,and concemed.There were three momentsa1which writing and response 1679-li0;each in circumstances mthinkable at the momcnt preceding it. so that it rvas impossible ihat the same argumentsshould hav.: taken etlect in the same ways: three contexts, in shon. in which Filmer had wrinen or been read and rve nrust undrrstandwhat he had intendedand horv hc had becn undcrstood. I sought Laslett'sacquaintxnce-in London. not Cantbridge,sincc hc rvasallachcdto the BBC at the foundationofthc Third Progranrme-arrd soon, il'not in 1949(l am in dangeroi'telescoping 8

Ali'airs\ol 2 2006 o1'l\rblic Joumdl Intematioilal

m y m em or i es ) bec am eaw ar eoftheeirrl y S t a g e s o f h i s p a t h b re a k i n g rv o rk o n J o l rn L o c k e . n o t ti nal | y c om p| etedunti l l g60.T hees s e n c e o f t h i s , a s w e d l k l o rv . w a s l " a s l c n . s d i s c o v e ry t h a t qritlen in repl)-' the republished to on Locke's Trearises Government-both, bur especiallythc Filst. probably in the period of liiimer-had been composed long before they \vere published in I689' Read rvith the Charles ll's dissolution of parliament and Locke's taking refuge in Amsterdatn. 'freatises-,,tspecially Second-are much ncarer to being a the ol circumstances 168I in mind, the jusrification of rebellion about ro nke place than to a juslitication of revolution already over and without bloodshedin England' which they appeaed to be' and theretbrewere' rvhen accomplished they w er epubl i s hedi n168g'T her eop e n s u p a g a p b e t w e e n L o c k e ' s i n t e n t i o n s i n w i t i n g t h e set and those he had in publishing rhem, and the problem ofhow words written with one Treatises very diflerent intentionsin I68l could be read as perfbrming another set of intentions in the of s i tuati onofl 63g.T hepr obl em oftex ts a s p e rf o rmi n g i n t e n t i o n s i n c o n t e x t s h a s n o w b e c o me t h e centralproblem for historiansoipolitical fhought. not occur to There is a funher set ofproblems that should be mentioned now, though they did yetrs What did Locke in 1949, or-for reasonsthat will appear--directly concem me in later me i ntendby pub| i s hi ngtheT r eati s es on G o v e mme n l a n o n y mo u s l y i n 1 6 3 9 , t h e L e t t e rC o n c e mi n g T ol er ati onanony m ous l y i nthes am ey e a l , a n d t h e E s s a y o n H u ma n U n d e rs t a n d i n g o v e rh i s o w n when and how did it name, also in 1689? How did he see the three works as related to each other? possible to read all three as the work of the same author, and the frst nvo in the context become knoM as a prcvided by the last? Was it only then, and was it by Locke's action, that he became philosophy? Did he polirical philosopher-that is to say, as one whose politics were related to his impart this view of his works to us, or is it we who have imposed it on him? TheseuespecimensofthequestionsthatarisefromLaslen'Slevolutionaryachievement'lshall ofpolitical thought not speak ofthem furtheq since I wish to turn to another discovery in the history gening to know Laslett that arose, for me, fiom the coincidence between my om researchesand with Laslett in i949' and understandingthe significance ofhis work. I had, by or about my meeting by James Tynell' a come upon a letter-preserved by some eighteenth-century collector-witten Peryt, a lawyer and antiquarian of the same political fairly close friend of John Lmke, to William v i ew s as hi s ow n'T y nel l i nfom s Peq/t t h a t t i re w o rk s o f Fi l rn e r, t h e n b e i n g re p u b | i s h e d , c o n t a i n a tr eati s ec al l edT heF r eehol der 's C r a n d l n q u e s t , w h i c h h e c o n s i d e rs a s d mg e ro u s s P a t ri a rc h a having come into beilrg at the because it argues that the House ofCommons is ofno great antiquity, k i ng's i ni ti ati v eaSl ateas l 265.H eur g e s P e t } t t o re f u t e t h i s , rv h i c h P e t } , t d i d , p u b l i s h i n g a w o rk l68l' It was to this and other called The Ancient Right of the Commons of England Assertedin arguing that parliamentemergcd in the first ofhis greatfieatises writings that Robert Brady replied, in the later history ofan England feudalised by the Norman Conquest Ihav enow ar r i v edatm y or i gi nal ' . C a mb ri d g e mo me n t , ' ; t h e e n t e rp ri s e w i l l h a v e o ri g i n a t e d a t the rvork of PeterLasleft' yet could other moments lor other peoplc. lvline lvas not directly due to nol hav ehappenedw i thouthi m .W ha t J a me s T)me l l . s l e t t e rre v e a l e d t o n t e w a s t h a t t h e re s p o n s e t o to the debareover the origins' of the reDublication Filmer developedalong trvo lines, one leading bi b| i c al or natur al .ol 'gov er nm entwe t j n d i n L o c k e . s t w o Tre a l i s e s . t h e o t h e rl e a d i n g t o t h e d e b a t e common law in English history' over the origins, or rather the antiquity, of parliament antl (one of whom rvas Tynell) f{ere were two very Brady and their successors conductedby Petyt.

J.G.\. I'ocock diferent rvays ofarguing about politics in England; they called for different assumptions and rvays and argumentative skills. Though ofcriticising them, different bodiesofknowledge, vocabularies different groups of specialists-theologims and philosophers, lawyers and philologists-rvere Englishmenofthat involved in making them, both modesofargument lvere well known to educated period; yet on the whole, it is rare to tind any writer equaily skilled and panicipantin both. James Tynell is an exception, perhaps for the reason that his was not an intelligence ofthe first orderl he wrote Pafiiarcha Non Monarcha. a rvork of the same order as Locke's First Treatise, Bibliotheca Politica md A Ceneral History of England, both intended to reti:te Brady, and also wote on the subject ofnatural law. Yet it is part ofthe story I have to tell that it was more than fifty years liom the time of Laslett'srvork and mine in 1949 beforea monographstudy of l'-l,nell was publishedby Julia Rudolph ofthe University ofPennsyivania.The history ofpolitical theory and the history of historiography have remained obstinately sepamte, and there is still a presumption that theory and philosophy should enjoy primacy. I claim to have uncovered a historical siruation in which this was not necessarily the case, though it is fiue that philosophy was taught in the scbools and history was not, My "Cambridge moment" consisted in the discovery that political debate and argument were conducted in more than one professional vocabulary, and more than one linguistic universe, each existing side by side and perhaps interacting with others, while remaining distinct and having a history ofits own. To Lasiett's discovery that the same text might have to be studied in more than one temporal context, I found myself adding that the same debate*and conceivably the same text-might be found, and have a history in more than one linguistic context; and I will claim that this enlargement ofthe notion ofcontext has been central to the "Cambridge" study ofthe history of political thought. I made this discovery when I noted the distinction between "philosophy"-ifthat is the right term to apply to Locke's Treatise on Covemment-and "history" meaning at this point the debate over the Ancient Constitution. I have ever since insisted that historiogaphy is a mode of political thought alongside but unlike political theory; and it could be said that, by devoting myself to the history of historiography in this sense, I have contributed to that gap between theory and history noted in the case ofJilnes Tyrell. I shall proceed from this point to consider how the history of political historiography has developed in my own work, alongside that of other so-called "Cambridge" witers. ( ii) t completed my dissertation in 1952, and spent the next three yeils in Nerv Zealand, where I enlarged it into The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law, witten at the University of Otago. I then spent a fi.rther three years in Cambridge, where The Ancient Constitution was published in had but his interests 1957. Peter Laslettwas still working on his edition ofLocke's Two Treatises, undergonea dmmatic shift, and he was editing what becamea serisof volumesentitledPhilosophy. Politics and Society.Their focus was on philosophy ofa radically analytical kind, known-l rvill not say how accurately*by the names of linguistic analysisand logical positivism..Thequestion any meaning,and a common answerlvas was how it was possibleto say anythingwhich possessed meansof validating.Karl Popperand l-udwig that a statementcouid mean only what it possessed

ofPublicAllairs vol 2 2006 Joumal lntemational a famous fireplace -and the emphasis Wirtgenstein here entered the debate--on opposite sides of had a history' Philosophy' Politics on language opened up the renewed possibility that language the philosophy of not contain essays on historical questions or-l would say--on and Sociery did reading these volumes was that ifthere history; but a conclusion I think in retrospect I drew from thesemodesofvalidation might were many ways ofvalidating, or claiming to validate'a statement' might be historically intelligible This exist in historical diversity, and their existence there s pec ul ati onpoi ntedbac k tothethes i s ,i n w h i c h l w a s a l re a d y i n t e re s t e d ' t h a t p o l i t i c a l t h o u g h t ---{ r vuiery of languages' and lay claim to rather, argument and discourse-might be conducted in a historian, I was less validation. Since I was not an analytical philosopher but a diverse kinds of and led to philosophical nonsense interested in showing that these modes ofvalidation were invalid at fomer times; a question to than in discovering why they had not been considered nonsense was not a satisfactory answer Thinking which the sometime prevalence of philosophical nonsense never left-in the discovery of past in this way led me back to m interest-which in fact I had simultaneously) which it was more linguistic universes (several of them, perhaps, existing that I would explore statements ln important to accept and explore than to falsiff; and it followed It was in this way that I was led to ways which did not culminate in their claim to validity' formulatemyfiIstattemptatatheoreticalmethodologyforWitingthehistoryofpoliticalthought; until 1962' by which time I had returned but this did not appear in Philosophy, Politics and Sociery ofCanterbury' where I spent the years from 1959 to 1965 at the University to New Zealand, many but not all of them at Duing this extended period a number of things happened' diversity-one pointing out that Edmund Cambridge. I produced two essayson themes oflinguistic constitution, the other that more than half of Thomas Bwke employed the lmguage of the ancient .u1t.1 166n'philosophy-and Hobbes' Leviathan is devoted to questions of biblical interpretation projects ofwhich I shall speak later Peter Laslett at began to develop some fifther historiographic C am br i dgepubl i s hedhi s Loc k eedi ti onin l g 6 0 -l e t me re c a l l t h a t t h e i mp a c t o f h i s w o rk h a d alreadybeenfeltforadecade-andsupervisedthedoctoraldissertationsofseveralactorsimpor|ant inthisstory:thelateJ.H.M.Salmon'theauthorofaremarkablebookonthelileratureoftheFrench John Dum' who is with us at this wars of religion as used in that of the civil wars in England; l Skinner, whose essaysbegan to appear in the middle nitieieen-siYties .onf.."nc";Ld Quentin I have entered upon territory which John Dum is beter will say more about them later, but qual i fi edtor ec al l thanl m .Am ongthel ast t o l e a rn d i re c t f ro mL a s l e t t i n t h i s f i e l d w e re G o rd o n Andrew Sharp from New Zealand: but now Schochet, the first Amencan to appear in this story and Ihavetotakeleaveoflaslettuthisroleasfoundingfather.Inanotherdramaticshiftofinterest,he and social strucrures The words abandoned the history of political thought for that of demographic course' to The World We Hav Lost' the "the Lost Worlds" in my title for this paper allude' of v ol um edi s c ov er i ngthew or l dofear l y .mo d e ms & u c t t re s a n d me n t a l i t i e s w h i c h h i s n e w i n t e re s t s of political thought and language which his revealed; but they denote also the many lost worlds made accessibleto so many ofus following him' revolutionary work in conteKtualisation (iii) moment" begin to be supplemented' I am now at a point where my memories ofa "Cambridge

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J.(iA. ibcock and perhapschallenged,by thosc ofothers, who will recall other momenrs:to shareand compare theserecollectionsis, perhaps, the purposeofrhis coni'erence- notableabsence that ofQuentin A is Skinne( rvhosefirst major critical essayappeared 1969 and his tirst major historicalsynthesisin in I 978. His critical witings, recentiycollected,have commandedso much adenrionthat there is now a secondaryliterature that studies him and his thought. with volumes by James Tully and Kari Palonen.My orvn writings on methodologyand theory,publishedin varioussettings, have not ben collectedand do not claim to equal Skinner's, which have explored the theory and philosophy of contexrualisation exceptionaldiversity and with the greatestretinement. Were he here, there in rvould be a temptationto convert this conferenceinto a discussionof him and his work; since he is not, there might be a temptation to conduct it as a series of presentations from which he is omitted-a history as it wcrc, ol'Denmrrk without Hamlet. I am going to put fonvard tlvo claims. Onc is that in the iiteratureconceming Skinner and his work, philosophers have trnded ro treat his central assertion, that political philosophy must be read as history, as a very interesting philosophicalassertion, and to discussit as such,without paying much attentionto his accountsof what has been happening in history which do not interesl them as much. The second claim is that while he has pursued the implication of contxtualisation into areas where I have not attempted to tbllow him, my om work has presented namtives of change and persistence in the history of political thinking somewhat more extensive than his, and have canied them into periods ofhistory he has yet to penetrate.Let me retm to autobiography in order to explain what I mean by this. I had included a chapter on Jmes Hffiington in The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: an interlude in its main narativ, which gave me occarsionto describe Harrington's Oceana as "a Machiavellian meditation on feudalism." ln the mid-1950s, I was already aware-though I am not sure I remember how----of a theme I took up at Canterbury after I 959 and developed in two ways after I moved to an appointment in the United States in 1966; I have lived and worked there ever since. Even in the edy scholars-Caroline 60s, my reading had encomtered the work of several major American Robbins, Douglass Adair, Bemard Bailyn -who moved me to carD/ my ow enquiries beyond the English seventeenthcentury, where the work ofthe "Cambridge school" has tended to focus, into an eighteenth cennry both British and American. On the one hand, classical thought derived from Greek and Roman values had persisted in American discouse at least down to the time ofthe Revolution and the Constitution; on the other, Robbins in particular helped me to see-and to reinforce in detail duing a researchjoumey to Englmd in I960--a vehement debate between Roman ideals of the republican citizen md new ideas centred on the concept of a commercial society, going on in both England and Scotland during the eighteenth cenntry, and vigorously conducted in the independent American states as they fomed themselves into a federal union. lt is around this debate-and above all its impact upon historical thought and historiography-that nearly ali my published work has been organized for at least the last forty years. I am emphasising this because my work has been much exposed to what I consider misunderstanding in and involved in controversies which I desireto play no pan. Fonnulating this nanative took timel it lvas nearly ten years after my renroval to America-and at the time of my lurther nrove from WbshingtonUniversiry in St. Louis to Johns Hopkins-that I publishedThe MachiavellianlVlonrent 1975 and The Politjcal Works of James in Hanington in 1977.Skinner's lhe Foundations ofModem Political Thought appearedin 1978; its

of Joumal PublicAffairsvol. 2 2006 lntcmational century fwo volumes do not go much be),ond the yetr 1550, so that my venture into the eighteenth (and certainly nDt l) should be occurs indqpendently of his work. and indicates that neither of us so mony wrters on read as engagedirr the searclrfor tlre rneaningof "modemiry" rvhich engrosses hi s tor y andphi l os ophy ,'F or m ei hepr obl ems l i e e l s e rv h e re . Th e Ma c h i a v e l l i a n ] V l o me n t c a n revived in the ccnainly be said to establish an ideal and enquire into its formation: the ideal, of tifteenrh century-l could speak of the work ol Hans Baron here<f the immediate involvement to in his own govemment among his equals,of the political institutionsnecessar-v that the cirizen shape. I can in involvement.and of the material and historical circumsiances which it can take in be read as a political theorist, exploring ild even advocating one set of norms therefore personality in competition with othen; and it is true that I see the involvement of the human as a govmment, politics and history as m urgent problem in ou own time' But I rvish to be read historian rather than a political or moral theorist. of Liberry' lsaiah Berlin had by this time published his famous essay on Two Concepts ,.positive" liberty to do something-to act, to determine the seli to seek distinguishing between a ..negative" freedom liom constraint, from control by the power of some other' the good- and a suggesting that the impeding one's capacity to do something.which need not be defined in any way was part ofthe definition ofliberty as such. Quentin Skinner has been much concemed definition w i ththepr obl em s r ai s edby Ber l i n's es s ay , a n d b o t h h e a n d l h a v e b e e n c o n c e me d (i n my c a s e s om ew hatunw i l l i ngl y ) w i thahi s tor i c al na rra t i v e w h i c h B e rl i n ' s t w o c o n c e p t s d o s o me t h i n g t o ofan ancient idea of define. Ifyou begin a history of"modem political thought" with the revival in the late medieval Italian republics, you will begin from a "positive" concept ofliberty citizenship the Romans virtus as the active assertion of political capacity: what the Greeks called aret and From that (note that this revival is called,.modem," so that the "ancient" is part ofthe modem). proceeds towards the selected starting point, it is possible to consmrct a historical narrative that more in accordance suprsessionofrepublican virtue and positive freedom by concepts ofliberty w i thBer l i n's ..negati v e''c onc epts .T her e a re v z u i o u s w a y s o f d e f i n i n g w h a t t h e s e w e re md h o w theyarose,andthereforedifferentwaysofnarratingthetransitionfromonetotheother;inevery will be a higltly case, it should be noted, a nmative baed on revived Greco-Romm republicanism and I have constructed local one, as this revival occuned only in specific cultures' Skimer for us both to be right' difierent narratives ofwhat occurred in these cultures, though there is room a term I do not so He has been more open than I to a definition ofnegative liberty as "liberalism," m uc hr ei ec tas abs tai nfr om us i ng:i tdeno t e s a p o l i t i c a l c o n d i t i o n i n w h i c h t h e i n d i v i d u a l i s purpose' as opposed to a protected in his rights by a state which has come into being for that a freedom which enhances their human capacities' republic or ssembly of citizens exercising P| eas enotethatl am enter i ngnofi fi her i nt o t h e t h e o re t i c a l o rp h i l o s o p h i c a | p ro b l e ms t h i s them' but I am limiting myself antithesis entails; there is much more that can and must be said about tothedi ffer enc es betw eenthehi s tor i c al n a rra t i v e s s k i n n e ra n d I c o n s t ru c t . H i s n a rra t i v e i s c onc em edw i ththes tate,w hos eadv enthe d e s c ri b e d a t t h e e n d o f Fo u n d a t i o n s o f Mo d e mP o l i t i c a | T houghtm es s enti a| tothegr oM hofthe..m o d e m. , ' H e h a s e l a b o ra t e d t h i s s t o ry i n h i s L i b e rt y Befor eLi ber al i s m andl ]j s es s ay s c ol | ec t e d i n t h re e v o l u me s o f V i s i o n s o f P o l i t i c s . Th e n a rra t i v e and modified republicanisnr-was claims that a "neo-roman" concept of libedy-a reduced were slaves of parlialnentarians the English Civil War' who assenedthat they common among the

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J.GA. I'ocock unless they were f'ully protected by a law they themselvesenforced. and that this definition of libenv was refuted by Thomas Hobbes, who asserted thal the negative liberty of the individual required a state to rvhose absolute authority he had himselfassented. Hobbes is therefore an original author of "liberalism," though to give that word more of irs "modem" meaningsother historical narrativesrvill be needed.Beyond this "Hobbesim moment" Skinner's historicalnarrativehas yet to proceed;we all expectthat it will, but do not know whaf courseit will take. Otherspresentat this contbrence may know more than I do. I rvould like norv to juxtapose Skinner's narative with my own-at the risk that I may summarise mine less severely than I have his. That I relate was taking shape betbre The Machiavellian Moment and elaborated after it, in Virtue, Commerce and History (1985), and most recently in a volume ofmy serieson Edward Gibbon, The First Decline and Fall (2003). From an early time I saw Machiavellim thought as concemedwith history,initially in "philosophical"tems, as the struggle of virti with fortuna, the human capaciry to shape the world with the anarchic condition of events as they befell non-Christian man. smggle in material and also in sequential terms. lt was always possible to present this As I was increasingly reminded by Skinner and

JoumalolPublicAflbirs vol 2 2006 lntcmational

v oc abul ar y ofc | as s i c al r epubl i c ani s m n o w b e c a n l e a c ri t i c i s mo f t h i s n e rv o rd e ro f t h i n g s , a s k i n g principle of his being; was not the rvhetherthe citizen was not giving up his virtue, the central lt became apparent' howeve( that the substitution ofcommerce for virme a recipe for corruption? backrvard towards barbarism; the new classical ideal presupposed an ancient economy' looking it might look aheadtowards corruptlon' ideal presupposedcommerce. capital and modemitv' though As ear l y as l T 00,thedebateam ongpol i tic a l t h e o ri s t s h a d b e c o me a d e b a t e a b o u t h i s t o ry b u i l d i n g historicalvocabulary;and this sophisticated on Machiavelli.andHarringtonbut employing a more at its end' through the eighteenth century md the democratic revolutions debate continued lt will tbr the past thlty yeus These tre the themes which I have explored in all my writings British history a consequenceol that I see the advent ofthe language ofcommerce-in be evident a change in the history of political the monarchy of william lll and the Hanoverian dynasry-as (though the latter played protbund than the advent ofThomas Hobbes or John Locke thought more cration ofa new language' and nearer to being u noobl. p* in it). It wls something more than the not to suppose that all aspects of the the advent of a new paradigm; though we must be careful di s c us s i onofpol i ti c s m us tber educ edto t h e t e rms i t s e t o u t . I f t h e re i s a t w e n t i e t h . c e n t w y p o l i t i c a l is Hannah Arendt' with her thesis philosopher with whom I am in accord when writing about it, this ..social,'' challenging the primary ofthe..Political'' duing the eighteenth century ofthe rise ofthe who responded to this challenge thm in the though I am less interested in the political philosophers process,who studied how civil society had come into gr"ut hirto.iun, and theorists ofthe historical being.ltiswiththisgreatchangeinthehistoryofpoliticalthoughtthatQuentinSkinnerhasnotyet deal t.l c m i m agi neas c enar i oi nw hi c hhe w i l l c o n t i n u e t o d e a l w i t h t h e s t a t e a ' l d p o l i t i c a l would be a consequence md philosophy, I with civil society and historiography' For me' that with Peter Laslett, when examining the responseto outcome of the discovery I made, in conjuction essays' just republished' on the Filmer more than tifty years ago. Istvan Hont's remarkable eiglrteenth-cenrurytheoryofthepoliticsofthecommercialstate,leavehiminapositiontobridge and mine; but Hont still wites as a the distance that would then exist between Skirurer's work of theory as xisting to clariff problems in theory. I suspcct political theorist who sees the history rather' see how humans exist-or that I have become a species of historicist, interested in themselvesasexisting-invarioushistoricalprocesses'andinbothstateandcivilsocietyasmeans going on in postmodem culture as of acting and existing in such histories' I see some things that go deprive us of the autonomy' and even the identity' sometimes intended-to tending-and with the capacity to cognise history and act in it' (iv) and works in the United States' I would Since I believe I am the only participant here who lives a report on how the something about my own work' and that ofothers' as like to conclude by saying ..C am br i dge,,m ethodhas dev e| oped i n A m ri c a n a c a d e mi c a n d i n t e l l e c t u a l c u | ru re . I w i l l n o t s a y chapterofThe MachiavellianMoment' since much about the American receptionofthe concluding and little exported beyond it' I it became a debare interior to the American academic community those of "modem" commercial that the values of classical republicanism and rvished to suggest but this became' much against my will' a liberty collided at the birth of the American republic;
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others that Machiavelli's thinking had more Roman roots than Athenian, I became more disposed to see it in Sallustian terms: the history ofhow one republic had acquired empire md been destroyed by it. Machiavelli had identified this story with that ofthe agrarian law: the history ofhow struggles befween senateand people for the control ofconquered land had led to civil war, the destruction of the republic, and a firther set ofproblems wirh which Augustus and his successorshad failed to cope. Here "political thought" had ceasedto be simply the analysis md comparisori ofcompeting noms, and become the narrative of a history in which early modem Euopeans were still involved. James Haningon had prefaced his imaginary reconstruction ofEngland as a republic with a version of this nmative ming from the collapse of the ancient republics through Gothic feudalism to the supposedrevival ofa freeholding commons in his own time. More clearly than Machiavelli, he had related this story in terms ofthe tenwe oflanded property, the distribution ofams, and the exercise of political capacity-l pause to lament our loss of Arihiro Fukuda --$ut had not knom that chmges were about to happen which would remove ms from the property of the individual to the

control of the state. His contemporary Hobbes had not thought in these terms to anything like the same degree; and my "moment of modemity" (if I must use that term) occurred some forty to fifty years later, in the after-effects ofa European crisis begiming about I688. I am about to describe changes in thought that Skinner may or may not include in a further narrative ofhis ou,n. The state discovered new capacities that I have discussed under the two heads of"standing amy" and "public credit." By encouraging investment in a national bank it became possible to maintain a professional army that was a pemanent instrument of state; this made civil war improbable and ensued that the state could go to war without collapsing. And the loans the state made to itselfrvere secured by investor confidence in the future of the national economy. The political society could now be seen not only as a state, but as a civil society, engaged in comerce and maintaining a state to further its existence. The individual ceased to be seen simply as a proprietor, possessing lands and arms with which he exercised his virtu and protected his rights, and became a Fansactor, exchanginggoods dnd ideaswith his fellow citizensmd engagedin so many commercialand social activitiesthat he could afford to leaverovernment to reDresentciives electedfor the oumose.The he l4

J.G.,\. Irocock debate as to which set of values possessedenduring importance in American cultue and irs history betbre and after the Foundation. passionate A commitment to the iconic significance ofJohn Locke, and to an identificationofcommercial socierywith a constructnamed"liberalism," have led tlrst to a debateover the relative weights of -republicanism" and "liberalism" in American values, and second to a declration that the supremacyof "liberalism" has been so absolutethat th debare benveenthe two is fictitious..Ihere is a deteminafion to wite about "liberal republicanism"as if the two lvere always one. ln this discussionI have taken no part. America, I have come to realize, is a fbundationalist culture,committedto debateover the principleson which it rvas founded.Since I am not an Arnericancitizen. I have no obligationto take part in this debate;as a historian,I am not sure horv far I want to. The birth of a foundationalist culture, however, is m imponmt historical event, md I do not lbllorv the decision of Quentin Skinner and some of his collaborators. who as good Europeanshave simply leli American intellectualhistory out of their histories of modern political thought.I do not think this can or shouldbe done. Since completing The Machiavellian Moment, and Virtue, pommerce and Hisrory ten years later, nry work has increasingly focused on eighteenth{entury historiogaphy, wilh Edward Gibbon as a central tigue. Since Cibbon viewed the Decline and Fall of Rome as the collapseof ancient vinue from weaknessesinherent in its structue, his friendships with David Hume and Adam Smith situate him in the dialectic between ancient virtue and modem commerce; but his nanative led him towards not modem Euope but medieval Christendom, the rise of the Chuch to a species of authority that made it a competitor with both state and civil society. At this point my understanding ofthe history ofpolitical thought hms back towards viewing it as a debate between secular and spidnral authorify, not to be mderstood without the constant presence of Christian theology and sacred history. Even what we call Enlightenment was continuously engaged in that debate, and had not dismissed it from consideration. Here my understanding of political thought in eighteenth-century England owes a great deal to a figure not so far mentioned: J.C.D. Clark, whose Cambridge fomation as I see it is due less to Lasleft or Skinner than !o Mauice Cowling. a. neo-Augustinian who in a post-religious age saw the debate with God, whethCifr??xisrs'offrbt, as ofgreater significance than secultr history itself Within that history where I remain, I owe a great debt to Cltrk for his insistence that post-Stuart England remained a Christian society debating the nature of Christ and his Church. Without that debate the unbeliever Gibbon could not have witten his history which I am still pursuing. Outside my own witings, I have been activ in conducting with others the programmes of the Folger lnstitute Center tbr the History of British Political Thought. lounded by Cordon Schochet and myselfwith the intentionofapplying "Cambridge" methodsto the rich holdings ofthe Folger ShakespeareLibrary in Washington. That Center has been a focus lbr the "Cambridge moment" in the United States, md we re revierving the fwenfy years of its history. The nature of the Folger holdings has limited its activitiesto the pcriod flom the sixteenth century to the mid-eighteenth, and this is perhapsthe moment to ask whether the "Cambridge method" has become limited to that period. Is not the method ofstudying texts in a diversityofhistorical contextspeculiarlysuitedto an era when "political'thought"rvasproducedby a diversity of clericalclitewhurchmen, schoolmen. jurists, and humanists? What will happen now that Gregory Claeys and Gareth Stedman Jones-Skinner's successor Professorof Political Scienceat Cambridge-are pressingon into as to

Affairsvol 2 2006 of Joumal Public lntemational industrial sociefy? I am not the era of warfare against revolutionary France and the beginnings of \ et sure. early There is one respect in rvhich the Folger center may be depaning from resfriction to the debatingtheir intemal struclures and civil societies states nrodem.We are beginningto look beyond relationswith one another. ing and historicaltbrmations,and considerthem debat the po litics of their of relations,sometimesin the structures empires.In this we are sometimesin systemsof inter-state now established fbllowing rhe lead given by RichardTuck and David Amitage, cambridge figures narrative with in the other Cambridge at Haryard. Their work may be said to present a historical it and Grotius, rather than Hobbes or Hffiington, at its centre; there is a strong connection between published- is a that of lstvan Hont. Their presence at Haruad-where Hont's essays have been active in North reminder of the several rvays in which the "Cambridge" tradition is alive and in Canada' Anrerica. I have not fourd time in this paper to speak of the work of James Tully posts in America: Jonathan others besides those I have mentioned have.moved from cambridge to Angeles. A second Scott at Pinsburgh, Anrhony Pagden at the university of california in Los permit generation ofscholars in the united states has been fiained in "cambridge" methods: I will Mashall at myself to mention Arthu Williamson ar Sacramento' Michael Mendle at Alabma, John J ohs H opk i ns <r i gi nal l y apupi l ofM ark G o l d i e , a C a mb ri d g e f i g u re o f w h o ml h a v e s a i d t o o from America to little -Eliga Gould at New Hampshire, and, in a process of reversed emigration the last word Britain, Anne Mclaren at Liverpool and Lawrence Klein at cambridge itself. Perhaps story dealing with English-speaking historians and the must be that this is still an Anglophone impact history ofthe British role in early modem political thought. what has been the "cambridge" in continental Europe and the geat statesofEast Asia is for others to recount'

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