1 Ashcraft, , “The Radical Dimensions of Locke's Political Thought: A Dialogic Essay on Some Problems of Interpretation,” History of Political Thought 13 (1992): 707.Google Scholar

2 Hobbes, , Behemoth, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vol., ed. Sir Molesworth, William (London: 1839–1845) 6: 254.Google Scholar

3 See, most recently, Miller, Ted and Strong, Tracy B., “Meanings and Contexts: Mr. Skinner's Hobbes and the English Mode of Political Theory,” Inquiry 40 (1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 “[Skinner's Foundations] is primarily of interest to philosophers not for its excellent account of European thought about the state but for the self-conscious philosophy that has gone into it” (Minogue, Kenneth, “Method in Intellectual History: Quentin Skinner's Foundations,” Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed. Tully, James and Skinner, Quentin [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988], p. 176 [emphasis added]Google Scholar).

5 Skinner, , “Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action”; “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” Meaning and Context, pp. 97,64, respectively)Google Scholar. Cf. Minogue, , “Method in Intellectual History,” p. 177.Google Scholar

6 Skinner, , “Some Problems,” pp. 98–9Google Scholar. His recent work is no exception; see Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 7–8,15Google Scholar; Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p.101ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. Tully, James, “The Pen is a Mighty Sword: Quentin Skinner's Analysis of Politics,” Meaning and Context, p. 16.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Skinner, , “A Reply to My Critics,” Meaning and Context, pp. 267, 278.Google Scholar

8 Tully, , “Pen is a Mighty Sword,” p. 9Google Scholar. Cf. Skinner, , “‘Social Meaning’ and the Explanation of Social Action,” Meaning and Context, p. 94.Google Scholar

9 Skinner, “Motives, Intentions, and the Interpretation of Texts,” Meaning and Context, pp. 77–8.Google Scholar

10 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

11 Skinner, , “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” pp. 75–6Google Scholar. The term Skinner uses is meaning ₃, which he distinguishes from the plain meaning of the words and “meaning for me.”

12 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” p. 48Google Scholar; cf. “Some Problems,” p. 102.

13 Skinner, , “Reply,” pp. 284–85.Google Scholar

14 Tully, , “Pen is a Mighty Sword,” pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

15 Skinner, , “A Reply,” p. 271.Google Scholar

16 ibid., p. 275.

17 The Engagement controversy (1650–54) was a dispute over the oath of loyalty or “Engagement” required by the Commonwealth government; it quickly blossomed into a debate on the legitimacy of the government itself.

18 Skinner, , “Conquest and Consent: Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement Controversy,” The Interregnum: The Quest for Settlement 1646–1660, ed. Aylmer, G. E. (London: Macmillan, 1974), pp. 79–93.Google Scholar

19 ibid., p. 94.

20 ibid., p. 97.

21 Skinner, , “Thomas Hobbes on the Proper Signification of Liberty,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5^th series, no. 40 [1990], p. 150.Google Scholar

22 ibid., p. 145. Only in a footnote does Skinner acknowledge that he first articulated the de facto interpretation, downplaying his role almost to the point of disingenuity (ibid., n. 155).

23 ibid., p. 149. The claim that Hobbes's view of political obligation changes significantly in Leviathan could be strongly disputed.

24 Skinner, , “Conquest and Consent,” pp. 94–96.Google Scholar

25 Goldsmith, M. M., “Hobbes's Ambiguous Politics,” History of Political Thought 9 (1990): 640–41Google Scholar; Milton, Philip, “Did Hobbes Translate De Cive?” History of Political Thought 9 (1990)Google Scholar; Richard Tuck, “Introduction,” Hobbes, Thomas, On the Citizen, ed. Tuck, and Silverthorne, Michael (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

26 Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, p. xvi.Google Scholar

27 Burgess, Glenn, “Contexts for the Writing and Publication of Hobbes's Leviathan,” History of Political Thought 9 (1990), pp. 676–77Google Scholar; cf. Tuck, Richard, Hobbes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 27, on the writing schedule.Google Scholar

28 Wiener, Jonathan M., “Quentin Skinner's Hobbes,” Political Theory 2 (1974): 256CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Burgess, “Contexts.”

29 Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, p. 361.Google Scholar

30 ibid., pp. 291,350, 354, and 362 for some other examples.

31 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” p. 34ffGoogle Scholar; cf. Minogue, , “Method in Intellectual History,” pp. 179–80.Google Scholar

32 Skinner, , “Some Problems,” pp. 103,107.Google Scholar

33 Skinner, , “A Reply” p. 275.Google Scholar

34 Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, pp. 271, 274.Google Scholar

35 Herzog, Dan, “Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes” Political Theory 25 (1997): 895.Google Scholar

36 Miller, and Strong, , “Meanings and Contexts,” p. 343Google Scholar; cf. Strauss, Leo, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Its Basis and Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952).Google Scholar

37 Walker, William, “Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes,” Philosophy and Literature 21 (1997): 206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Skinner devotes three paragraphs and a few footnotes to the subject (Reason and Rhetoric, pp. 66–67).

39 Shuger, Deborah, “Sacred Rhetoric in the Renaissance,” Renaissance-Rhetorik, ed. Plett, Heinrich F. (Berlin: Walter de Bruyter, 1993), pp. 123,152–53.Google Scholar

40 Silver, Victoria, “Hobbes on Rhetoric,” The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, ed. Sorel, Tom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 338.Google Scholar

41 Skinner, , “Ideological Context,” pp. 293–94, 303–12Google Scholar; “Conquest and Consent” pp. 81–93; “Context of Hobbes's Theory,” pp. 110–14.

42 Parliament considered Hobbes's work on blasphemy charges in 1657 and 1666. Skinner's claim that these charges hurt Hobbes's image and discouraged citation of his work, thus concealing its true influence and relation to the Engagement debate, is anachronistic. Besides, it is difficult to square Skinner's reports of Hobbes's “notoriety” and “unspeakably dangerous” doctrines with his claim that Hobbes was popular and well-respected at home. Skinner cites Eachard, who wrote 28 years after the controversy, on Hobbes's popularity; all the authors cited there wrote after 1665, making their views irrelevant to Hobbes's stature in the early 1650s.

43 Condren, Conal, The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 138–39.Google Scholar

44 Burgess, , “Contexts,” pp. 679–95Google Scholar. Publication of Leviathan in 1651 caused confusion and misunderstanding of Hobbes's intentions. Until then, Hobbes was always seen as a good (if clever) royalist. “Leviathan was at best extremely tepid in its allegiance to Engagement theory, and any links between Hobbes and the Engagers were made contrary to his will, and to his embarrassment” (ibid.).

45 Goldsmith, , “Hobbes's Politics,” pp. 640–41Google Scholar; Burgess, , “Contexts,” p. 696.Google Scholar

46 Skinner, , “Context of Hobbes's Theory,” pp. 137–38.Google Scholar

47 Bramhall attacks Hobbes's theory as “dog's play”—always taking the side of the stronger. “It seemeth T.H. did ‘take’ his soveraign ‘for better’ but not ‘for worse’” (Bramhall, John, Castigations of Mr. Hobbes [New York: Garland, 1977], pp. 557–58Google Scholar). Bramhall blasts Hobbes's theology, politics, and timing but never challenges his royalist bona fides.

48 By focusing on how Leviathan was received and used, rather than on the ideological context which allegedly shaped it, Skinner may overstate the theoretical importance of Engagement altogether (Mulligan, Lotte, Richards, Judith, and Graham, John, “Intentions and Conventions: A Critique of Quentin Skinner's Method for the Study of the History of Ideas,” Political Studies 27 [1979]: 95CrossRefGoogle Scholar). According to Wallace, the Engagement was not particularly shocking, coming in the wake of the Solemn League and Covenant (See Ashley, Maurice, The English Civil War, rev. ed. [Gloucester, 1990], p. 89Google Scholar); those who took the oath did so with the understanding that the illegal government was temporary. Most people took the pledge and most would not have hesitated to break it if the opportunity arose (Wallace, John M., “The Engagement Controversy 1649–53: An Annotated List of Pamphlets,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 68 [1964]: 385–89Google Scholar). Even Bramhall recognized that, as a practical matter, loyalists should submit (Bramhall, , Castigations, pp. 543–44Google Scholar).

49 Tully, “Pen is a Mighty Sword,” p. 12.Google Scholar

50 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” p. 65; “Some Problems,” p. 103; “A Reply,” pp. 274–75.Google Scholar

51 Skinner, , “A Reply,” pp. 274–75.Google Scholar

52 Skinner's discussion of the possibility of warning someone unintentionally (Skinner, , “A Reply,” pp. 264–65Google Scholar) makes this slippage clear.

53 I take up this problem of certainty below. Thanks to Perry Anderson and to referees at the Review for help on these points.

54 Condren, Conal, The Language of Politics in Seventeenth Century England (London: St. Martin's Press, 1994), pp. 10–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 Skinner, , “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” p. 78.Google Scholar

56 ibid., pp. 77–78; cf. “A Reply,” 278.

57 Skinner, , “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” pp. 77–78Google Scholar. The exceptional cases are those involving ritual actions (Skinner, , “‘Social Meaning,’” pp. 93–94).Google Scholar

58 Skinner, , “The Principles and Practice of Opposition; The Case of Bolingbroke versus Walpole,” Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society in Honour of J.H. Plumb, ed. McKendrick, Neil (London: Europa, 1974), pp. 108–29, esp. 124ff.Google Scholar

59 Skinner, , “Some Problems,” p. 108.Google Scholar

60 Skinner, , “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” p. 73.Google Scholar

61 ibid., p. 78.

62 Hobbes, , Considerations Upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes in English Works, 4: 418.Google Scholar

63 Hobbes spent most of his life in the service of the staunchly royalist Cavendish family. He helped collect the Forced Loan and stood for Parliament at Newcastle's behest in 1640. In 1646, he became the mathematics tutor of the Prince of Wales (later Charles II). After the Restoration in 1660, the king received Hobbes warmly at court, even granting him for a time the substantial salary of £100. Charles also helped Hobbes quash atheism charges in Parliament in 1666 (Tuck, , Hobbes, p. 25Google Scholar; Rogow, Arnold, Thomas Hobbes: Radical in the Service of Reaction [New York: W.W. Norton, 1986], p. 206ffGoogle Scholar.; Malcolm, Noel, “A Summary Biography of Hobbes,” The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, p. 36).Google Scholar

64 Cf. Skinner, , “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” p. 77.Google Scholar

65 I am grateful to a referee at the Review for help on this point.

66 “Blunderers, whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole, make two or three real ones” (Bramhall, , Castigations, p.544).Google Scholar

67 Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, p. 11.Google Scholar

68 ibid., pp. 217ff., 221ff., 226ff., 238–40, 244ff.

69 ibid., pp. 242–43.

70 ibid., p. 256.

71 ibid., pp. 289–90.

72 ibid., pp. 3–4.

73 ibid., pp. 250–326.

74 Hobbes, , “On the Life and History of Thucydides” Hobbes's Thucydides, ed. Schlatter, Richard (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1975), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

75 Hobbes, , The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, ed. Tönnies, Ferdinand, 2ed. (London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd.,1969), p. 178Google Scholar; cf.Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, p. 300ff.Google Scholar

76 Hobbes, , On the Citizen, p. 139.Google Scholar

77 Martinich, , “Reason and Rhetoric,” p. 150Google Scholar documents this “tendentious” proclivity.

78 Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, p. 351; cf. p. 4.Google Scholar

79 Hobbes, , Leviathan, p. 151Google Scholar

80 Johnston, David, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 61.Google Scholar

81 Gunnell, John G., Political Theory: Tradition and Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, 1979), p. 102Google Scholar; cf. Tarlton, Charles D., “Historicity, Meaning, and Revisionism in the Study of Political Thought,” History and Theory 12 (1973): 312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82 Gunnell, , Political Theory, pp. 102, 122.Google Scholar

83 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” p. 64Google Scholar; cf. “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” p. 77.

84 Skinner, , “A Reply,” p. 280.Google Scholar

85 ibid., p. 279.

86 Skinner, , “Ideological Context,” p. 313.Google Scholar

87 Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, p. 8 (emphasis added)Google Scholar. See also “‘Social Meaning,’” p. 95; “Some Problems,” p. 104.

88 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” pp. 57”9.Google Scholar

89 ibid.

90 ibid., p. 63.

91 ibid., p. 64.

92 Skinner, , “A Reply,” p. 232.Google Scholar

93 Skinner, , “Hobbes's Leviathan,” Historical journal 7 (1964): 333CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Skinner's complaints with the contemporary Hobbes scholarship see “The Context of Hobbes's Theory of Political Obligation,” Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical Essays, eds. Cranston, Maurice and Peters, Richard S. (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1972).Google Scholar

94 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” p. 29.Google Scholar

95 Gunnell, , Political Theory, p. 103.Google Scholar

96 Minogue, , “Method in Intellectual History,” 178Google Scholar; cf. Skinner, , “A Reply,” p. 234.Google Scholar

97 Skinner, , “A Reply,” p. 234.Google Scholar

98 Skinner, , Liberty Before Liberalism, pp. 108–9Google Scholar; “Reply,” p. 232.

99 Skinner, , “Some Problems,” p. 102Google Scholar; “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” p. 70; “Reply,” p. 272. Skinner ridicules the idea of “meaning for me” as a “consumer-oriented study of ‘reader response’”(ibid).

100 Skinner, , “Motives, Intentions, and Interpretation,” p. 70.Google Scholar

101 Skinner, “A Reply,” p. 286, summarizes these charges.Google Scholar

102 Skinner, , “Meaning and Understanding,” p. 67Google Scholar; “A Reply,” p. 287; cf. Liberty Before Liberalism, p. 107; Reason and Rhetoric, p.15.

103 Skinner, , Liberty Before Liberalism, p. 117–8.Google Scholar

104 Crick, Bernard, “Liberty Before Liberalism,” Political Quarterly 69 (1998): 326.Google Scholar

105 Herzog, , “Reason and Rhetoric,” p. 895.Google Scholar

106 Cf. Skinner, , Reason and Rhetoric, p. 16Google Scholar. Skinner hopes to convey “something of the attractions of [humanism's]⃛ accounts of rationality and moral argument” and to raise “anew the question of which [philosophical] style is more deserving of our intellectual allegiances.” This is largely a rhetorical question.

107 Tully, , “Pen is a Mighty Sword,” p. 17.Google Scholar

108 Skinner and other Cambridge school theorists have similarly reinterpreted Machiavelli, Locke, Harrington, and others.

109 This is not to take any position on whether these views do in fact require reexamination.