 First edition, volume 1 | |
| Author | Quentin Skinner |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | History of political thought |
| Published | 1978 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Awards | Wolfson Prize for History (1979) |
| ISBN | 978-0521293372 (Vol. 1) 978-0521294355 (Vol. 2) |
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought is a two-volume work ofintellectual history byQuentin Skinner, published in 1978. The work traces the conceptual origins of modern politics by investigating thehistory of political thought in the West at the turn of themedieval andearly modern periods, from the 13th to the 16th centuries. It represents thecontextualist approach to thehistory of ideas which Skinner and his colleagues in theCambridge School had pioneered in the 1960s.[1]
TheTimes Literary Supplement named theFoundations one of the 100 most influential books since World War II.[2] An edited collection discussing and critiquing the work,Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, was published in 2006.[3]
Skinner'sFoundations were discussed at a panel at the 95th annual meeting of theAmerican Historical Association in 1980, chaired by Ralph E. Giesey, with J. H. M. Salmon,J. G. A. Pocock and Julian Franklin participating, Skinner commenting.[4] The manuscript of Pocock's lecture is now part of the J. G. A. Pocock Collection at the Institute of Intellectual History for theUniversity of St Andrews.[5] It is an earlier and shorter version of his articleVirtues, Rights, and Manners: A Model for Historians of Political Thought, published in 1981.[6]
Pocock praises theFoundations for presenting "the continuity of Reformation with scholastic thought"[7] and connects the book's themes with his own theses about the influence ofMachiavellian thought not only to American ideology, but onScottish Enlighenment as well. Based on Skinner's work, he distinguishes between "two themes or lines in argument in favour of civic liberty".[8] While the humanist (Greek) one argues from a moral viewpoint, i.e. thatliberty is required forvirtus and justice is "the best life for man",[8] the juristic-imperial (Roman) line uses liberty as a concept to describe the result of power (imperium) going back from a princeps to the people. The former is focused onpositive liberty, the latter onnegative liberty, examplified by Pocock with the last words ofCharles I that having liberty does not include participation in government. The hypothesis Pocock presents is, in essence, thatliberalism – based on law, especially property rights (which Pocock characterizes "to the jurist" as "the essential object of right")[9] – is unrelated tovirtus, i.e. grounded not in the humanist, but the juristic-imperial strain of arguing for civic liberty. This "possesive individualism", according to Pocock, "defines the individual by his engagement in property transactions";[9] it is furthermore "long predatingearly modern capitalism".[10]
Virtue is also a central topic in Pocock's later work about what he calls theconservative enlightenment.
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