Quentin Skinner


Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner 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 currently the Barber Beaumont 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.

Biography

Quentin Skinner was born on 26 November 1940, the second son of Alexander Skinner and Winifred Skinner, née Duthie. He was educated at Bedford School and, like his elder brother, won an entrance scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a double-starred first in history in 1962. 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.
Skinner was appointed to a lectureship in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge in 1965. 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. He was appointed to the post of Regius Professor of History in 1996, and in 1999 as pro-vice-chancellor of the university.
In 1979 he married Susan James, later Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London. 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.
Although Skinner has spent most of his academic career at Cambridge, he has held a number of visiting appointments. He has been Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Social Science at the Australian National University ; Visiting Professor at Washington University in St. Louis ; Directeur d’Etudes Associé at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes ; Professeur Associé at Université Paris X ; Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven ; Visiting Professor at Northwestern University ; Professeur invité at the Collège de France ; Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin ; Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University ; Laurence Rockefeller Visiting Professor at Princeton University ; Spinoza Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam ; Visiting Professor in the Global Fellowship programme at Peking University, Beijing ; and Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago.
Skinner has delivered a number of prestigious lecture series, including the Gauss Seminars at Princeton, The Carlyle Lectures at Oxford, The Messenger Lectures at Cornell, The Tanner Lectures at Harvard, the Ford Lectures at Oxford, the Clarendon Lectures at Oxford, the Clark Lectures at Cambridge and the Academia Sinica Lectures in Taiwan.
Skinner has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 1981, and is also a foreign member of a number of national academies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the American Philosophical Society, the Royal Irish Academy, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Österreichische Academie der Wissenschaften, and the Royal Danish Academy. 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, University of St Andrews and Uppsala University. 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, the David Easton Award of the American Political Science Association, the Bielefelder Wissenschaftspreis and a Balzan Prize. Since 2009, he has been a member of the Balzan Prize Committee.

Academia

Skinner has been exceptionally influential as a teacher, and a large number of his former PhD students have gone on to distinguished academic careers, including David Armitage, Richard Bellamy, Annabel Brett, Martin Dzelzainis, Andrew Fitzmaurice, Mark Goldie, Karen Kupperman, Eric M. Nelson, Jürgen Overhoff, Jon Parkin, Peter N. Miller, Markku Peltonen, Richard Tuck, and James Tully.

Methodology

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. 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. 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 classic authors – although it also consciously questions the extent to which it is possible to isolate so-called 'classic' texts. In its earlier versions this added up to what many have seen as a persuasive critique of the approach of an older generation, and particularly of Leo Strauss and his followers.
Skinner's starting point for developing his own methodology is a critical attitude towards two different approaches to the history of ideas: an externalist approach and a form of close reading. Skinner's critique of the so-called externalist approach is mainly - thought not exclusively - addressed at Marxist intellectual historians, who, in Skinner's view, often reduced texts to their socio-economic context. In this approach, texts were considered to be “reflections” of other non-textual realities. Thus, in order to understand a text, one simply had to clarify these socio-economic matters. This perspective meant that the author became stripped of agency and as their intentions or motives were largely taken to reflect their the person's socio-economic status or position in society. In this way, these critics reduced the author's agency. The second “victim” of Skinner's criticism - close reading - was the American historian of ideas Arthur Lovejoy's work. In Skinner's eyes, Lovejoy's style of close reading does not look outside the text itself. In this perspective, the intellectual historian only needs to read the text over and over. In Skinner's eyes, this method is unable to connect texts with their context. It is not really contextualist, and misses out the crucial dimension of linguistic action, the question of what the author may have been doing in what they wrote.
Skinner consequently proposes a form of linguistic contextualization that involves situating a text in relation to other texts and discourses. In this 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. Therefore, Skinner argues that intellectual historians should focus on the synchronic context of the text. In this way, it becomes possible to decipher the original purpose of a text. To Skinner, then, texts are seen as weapons or tools that can, for example, be used to support, discredit, or legitimize specific social and political arrangements. Skinner thus sees texts as things that try to influence the world and in order to understand this ambition, one must first understand the world in which they intervene.

Empirical focus

Skinner's historical work has mainly focused on political thinking in early-modern Europe. He has written a book on Niccolò Machiavelli, 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. He has written one book about what he calls the 'neo-Roman' view that liberty essentially consists in not being dependent on the arbitrary will of others, and another about Hobbes's largely successful challenge to this view with the claim that liberty simply consists in absence of impediments to action. A conference was held at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in 2017 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Liberty before Liberalism, and this led Skinner to return to questions about the theory of freedom. He is now engaged on a study of the debate about liberty and slavery in the Enlightenment. Meanwhile a book arising out of the Netherlands conference will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2021 under the title Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism.

The other main focus of Skinner's research, which can perhaps be traced to the influence of Wittgenstein and Austin, manifest in his early philosophical articles, has been on the history of rhetoric. The first volume of his Foundations traces the re-emergence of classical rhetoric in the Renaissance. His Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes examines the attempt to discredit rhetorical methods of argument in the scientific revolution. His monograph, Forensic Shakespeare illustrates how, in a group of 'forensic' plays of which the most important are The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Othello, Shakespeare makes extensive use of the classical theory of rhetorical 'invention' to structure a number of speeches and scenes. Skinner's latest monograph, From Humanism to Hobbes, includes several chapters focusing on the technique of rhetorical redescription, the technique of excusing vices as virtues and thereby of manipulating the language of morality.
Skinner has also been extremely active as an editor. For many years he co-edited, with Raymond Geuss, the Cambridge University Press series, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, in which over 100 volumes have so far appeared. Skinner is now General Editor of the series, and is overseeing its current expansion into the publication of non-Western texts. He was also a founding editor, and later co-editor with James Tully, of the Cambridge University Press's series in intellectual history, Ideas in Context.

Miscellany

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. He commented that they had both been "outed" in a book published about the Apostles some time before.
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'.
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.
The Balzan-Skinner Lectureship, renamed the Quentin Skinner Fellowship in Intellectual History since c1500 in 2016, 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.

Principal publications

Books

1. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume I: The Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 1978.
2. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume II: The Age of Reformation, Cambridge University Press, 1978.
3. Machiavelli, Oxford University Press, 1981.
3. Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford University Press, 2000.
3. Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford University Press, 2019.
4. Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
5. Liberty before Liberalism, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
6. Visions of Politics: Volume I: Regarding Method, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
7. Visions of Politics: Volume II: Renaissance Virtues, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
8. Visions of Politics: Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
9. L’artiste en philosophie politique, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 2003.
10. Hobbes and Republican Liberty, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
11. La verité et l’historien, ed. Christopher Hamel, Editions EHESS, Paris, 2011.
12. Die drei Körper des Staates, Wallstein, Göttingen, 2012.
13. Forensic Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 2014.
14. From Humanism to Hobbes: Studies in Rhetoric and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Books edited

1., Philosophy, Politics and Society: Fourth Series, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1972.
2., Philosophy in History, Cambridge University Press, 1984.
3., The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, 1985.
4., The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
5., Machiavelli, The Prince, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
5, Machiavelli, The Prince Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
6., Machiavelli and Republicanism, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
7., Political Discourse in Early-modern Britain, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
8. Milton and Republicanism, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
9., Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage; Volume I: Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
10., Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage; Volume II: The Values of Republicanism in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
11., States and Citizens: History, Theory, Prospects, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
12., Thomas Hobbes: Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right, Edited by Alan Cromartie and Quentin Skinner, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2005.
13. Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
14. Families and States in Western Europe, Cambridge University Press 2011.
15. Freedom and the Construction of Europe Volume I: Religious Freedom and Civil Liberty, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
16. Freedom and the Construction of Europe Volume II: Free Persons and Free States, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
17. Popular sovereignty in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Interviews

2019: ‘Conversation with Quentin Skinner’ in Thinking in the Past Tense: eight conversations, ed. Alexander Bevilacqua and Frederick Clark, Chicago University Press, pp. 191-212.  
2018: ‘’, Quentin Skinner interviewed by Professor Jeremy Jennings of King’s College London.
2017: 'Idées, histoire et sciences sociales: Entretien avec Quentin Skinner' in Vers une histoire sociale des idées politiques, ed. Chloé Gaboriaux and Arnault Skornicke, pp. 93–110.
2017:‘Nous sommes peut-être beaucoup moins libre que nous le pensons’, Interview with Astrid von Busekist, translated by Mathieu Hauchecorne and Frédérique Matonti, Raisons politiques 67, pp.185-203.
2016: by Hansong Li. Chicago Journal of History Vol. VII Autumn 2016.
2014: , Skript: Historisch Tijdschrift 36, pp. 245–52.
2013: 'An Interview with Professor Quentin Skinner' conducted by Jeng-Guo Chen and Carl Shaw, Intellectual History 2, pp. 239–62
2012:
2012: See also
2009: 'Making History; The Discipline in Perspective: Interview with Professor Quentin Skinner', Storia e Politica 1, pp. 113–34.
2009: 'Wie frei sind wir wirklich?' Fragen an Quentin Skinner', Zeitschrift fűr Ideengeschichte 3, pp. 5–21.
2007: 'Neither text, nor context: An interview with Quentin Skinner', Groniek: Historisch Tijdschrift 174, pp. 117–33
2007: 'La Historia de mi Historia: Una Entrevista con Quentin Skinner', El giro contextual: Cinco ensayos de Quentin Skinner y seis comentarios, ed. Enrique Bocardo Crespo, Madrid, pp. 45–60.
2007:
2006: 'Historia intellectual y acción política: Una entrevista con Quentin Skinner', Historia y Política 16, pp. 237–58
2003: 'La Libertà Politica ed il Mestiere dello Storico: Intervista a Quentin Skinner', Teoria Politica 19, pp. 177–85
2002: 'Encountering the Past: An Interview with Quentin Skinner', Finnish Yearbook of Political Thought 6, pp. 32–63
2001: 'Quentin Skinnerin haastattelu', Niin & Näin 31, pp. 8–23
2000: 'Intervista a Quentin Skinner: Conseguire la libertà promuovere l'uguaglianza', Il pensiero mazziniano 3, pp. 118–22.
2000: 'Entrevista: Quentin Skinner' in As muitas faces da história, ed. Maria Lúcia Pallares-Burke, Brazilia, pp. 307–39