Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes

An outstanding new interpretation of Hobbes, one of the most difficult and challenging of political philosophers.

Quentin Skinner (Author)

9780521596459, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 June 1997

496 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.3 cm, 0.72 kg

'Quentin Skinner's Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes is a monumental work which has joined his earlier two-volume Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978) as a massive contribution to our understanding of late medieval and early modern political theory.' London Review of Books

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's intellectual development, and re-examines the shift from a humanist to a scientific culture in European moral and political thought. By examining Hobbes's 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. This book presents a splendid exemplification of the 'Cambridge' contextual approach to the study of intellectual history with which Professor Skinner himself is especially associated. It will be of interest and importance to a wide range of scholars in history, philosophy, politics, and literary theory. Professor Skinner has been awarded the Balzan Prize Life Time Achievement Award for Political Thought, History and Theory. Full details of this award can be found at http://www.balzan.it/News_eng.aspx?ID=2474.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Classical Eloquenc e in Renaissance England: 1. The study of rhetoric
2. The politics of eloquence
3. The means of persuasion
4. The techniques of redescription
5. The uses of imagery
Part II. Hobbes and the Idea of a Civil Science: 6. Hobbes's early humanism
7. Hobbes's rejection of eloquence
8. Hobbes's science of politics
9. Hobbes's reconsideration of eloquence
10. Hobbes's practice of rhetoric
Conclusion: why did Hobbes change his mind?
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]