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  3. Ideas in Context

The books in this series discuss the emergence of intellectual traditions and related new disciplines. The procedures, aims and vocabularies that were generated will be set in the context of the alternatives available within the contemporary frameworks of ideas and institutions. Through detailed studies of the evolution of such traditions, and their modification by different audiences, it is hoped that a new picture will form of the development of ideas in their concrete contexts. By this means, artificial distinctions between the history of philosophy, of the various sciences, of society and politics, and of literature may be seen to dissolve.

  • General Editors: David Armitage, Richard Bourke, Adom Getachew, University of Chicago, Jennifer Pitts

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132 results in Ideas in Context

Page 5 of 7

Otto Neurath
  • Philosophy between Science and Politics
  • Nancy Cartwright, Jordi Cat, Lola Fleck, Thomas E. Uebel
  • Published online:
    17 December 2009
    Print publication:
    01 February 1996
  • An international team of four authors, led by distinguished philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, and leading scholar of the Vienna Circle, Thomas E. Uebel, have produced this lucid and elegant study of a much-neglected figure. The book, which depicts Neurath's science in the political, economic and intellectual milieu in which it was practised, is divided into three sections: Neurath's biographical background and the socio-political context of his economic ideas; the development of his theory of science; and his legacy as illustrated by his contemporaneous involvement in academic and political debates. Coinciding with the renewal of interest in logical positivism, this is a timely publication which will redress a current imbalance in the history and philosophy of science, as well as making a major contribution to our understanding of the intellectual life of Austro-Germany in the inter-war years.

The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt 1555–1590
  • Martin van Gelderen
  • Published online:
    15 December 2009
    Print publication:
    17 September 1992
  • This book is a comprehensive study of the history of the political thought of the Dutch Revolt (1555–90). It explores the development of the political ideas which motivated and legitimized the Dutch resistance against the government of Philip II in the Low Countries, and which became the ideological foundations of the Dutch Republic as it emerged as one of the main powers of Europe. It shows how notions of liberty, constitutionalism, representation and popular sovereignty were of central importance to the political thought and revolutionary events of the Dutch Revolt, giving rise to a distinct political theory of resistance, to fundamental debates on the 'best state' of the new Dutch commonwealth and to passionate disputes on the relationship between church and state which prompted some of the most eloquent early modern pleas for religious toleration.

The Constitutionalist Revolution
  • An Essay on the History of England, 1450–1642
  • Alan Cromartie
  • Published online:
    10 December 2009
    Print publication:
    17 August 2006
  • An innovative account of English constitutional ideas from the mid-fifteenth century to the time of Charles I, showing how the emergence of grand claims for common law, the country's strange unwritten legal system, shaped England's cultural development. Though he does not neglect the role of narrowly religious disagreements, Cromartie brings out the way that 'religious' and 'secular' values came to be closely intertwined: to the majority of Charles's subjects, the rights of the clergy and the king were legal rights; the institutional structure of Church and state was an expression of monarchical power, obedience to the king and to the law was a religious duty. A proper understanding of this cluster of ideas reveals why Charles found England so difficult to control and why both parties in the civil war believed that they were fighting for established institutions.

Philosophy in History
  • Essays in the Historiography of Philosophy
  • Edited by Richard Rorty, Jerome B. Schneewind, Quentin Skinner
  • Published online:
    03 December 2009
    Print publication:
    08 November 1984
  • The sixteen essays in this volume confront the current debate about the relationship between philosophy and its history. On the one hand intellectual historians commonly accuse philosophers of writing bad - anachronistic - history of philosophy, and on the other, philosophers have accused intellectual historians of writing bad - antiquarian - history of philosophy. The essays here address this controversy and ask what purpose the history of philosophy should serve. Part I contains more purely theoretical and methodological discussion, of such questions as whether there are 'timeless' philosophical problems, whether the issues of one epoch are commensurable with those of another, and what style is appropriate to the historiography of the subject. The essays in Part II consider a number of case-histories. They present important revisionist scholarship and original contributions on topics drawn from ancient, early modern and more recent philosophy. All the essays have been specially commissioned, and the contributors include many of the leading figures in the field. The volume as a whole will be of vital interest to everyone concerned with the study of philosophy and of its history.

Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570–1640
  • Markku Peltonen
  • Published online:
    02 December 2009
    Print publication:
    05 October 1995
  • Markku Peltonen examines humanist and republican themes in English political thinking between the mid-sixteenth century and the Civil War. He challenges the dominant view that humanism fizzled out in the middle of the sixteenth century only to re-emerge during the 1650s in the writings of such classical republicans as James Harrington and John Milton. The English continued to use central notions of the humanist tradition such as the virtuous civic life and vera nobilitas to portray themselves as citizens, characterizing their life as one of participation rather than subjection. They often resorted to openly republican themes - notably that governors be elected rather than hereditary - and the classical idea of the mixed constitution was profoundly influential. Dr Peltonen casts an important new perspective on these humanist and republican themes, and locates their uses in specific historical circumstances.

The Enlightenment's Fable
  • Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society
  • E. J. Hundert
  • Published online:
    23 November 2009
    Print publication:
    16 June 1994
  • The apprehension of society as an aggregation of self-interested individuals, connected only by bonds of envy, competition, and exploitation, is a dominant modern concern, but one first systematically articulated during the European Enlightenment. The Enlightenment's 'Fable' approaches this problem from the perspective of the challenge offered to inherited traditions of morality and social understanding by the Anglo-Dutch physician, satirist and philosopher, Bernard Mandeville. Mandeville's infamous paradoxical maxim 'private vices, public benefits' profoundly disturbed his contemporaries, while his Fable of the Bees had a decisive influence on David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant. Professor Hundert examines the sources and strategies of Mandeville's science of human nature and the role of his ideas in shaping eighteenth century economic, social and moral theories.

An Approach to Political Philosophy
  • Locke in Contexts
  • James Tully
  • General editor Quentin Skinner
  • Published online:
    20 November 2009
    Print publication:
    18 March 1993
  • An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Context brings together Professor Tully's most important and innovative statements on Locke in a systematic treatment of the latter's thought that is at once contextual and critical. Each essay has been rewritten and expanded for this volume, and each seeks to understand a theme of Locke's political philosophy by interpreting it in light of the complex contexts of early modern European political thought and practice. These historical studies are then used in a variety of ways to gain critical perspectives on the assumptions underlying current debates in political philosophy and the history of political thought. The themes treated include government, toleration, discipline, property, aboriginal rights, individualism, power, labour, self-ownership, community, progress, liberty, participation, and revolution.

Pluralism and the Personality of the State
  • David Runciman
  • Published online:
    10 November 2009
    Print publication:
    05 June 1997
  • Set against the broad context of philosophical arguments about group and state personality, Pluralism and the Personality of the State tells, for the first time, the history of political pluralism. The pluralists believed that the state was simply one group among many, and could not therefore be sovereign. They also believed that groups, like individuals, might have personalities of their own. The book examines the philosophical background to political pluralist ideas with particular reference to the work of Thomas Hobbes and the German Otto von Gierke. It also traces the development of pluralist thought before, during and after the First World War. Part Three returns to Hobbes in order to see what conclusions can be drawn about the nature of his Leviathan and the nature of the state as it exists today.

The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe
  • The Nature of a Contested Identity
  • Edited by Conal Condren, Stephen Gaukroger, Ian Hunter
  • Published online:
    06 November 2009
    Print publication:
    28 September 2006
  • In this groundbreaking collection of essays the history of philosophy appears in a fresh light, not as reason's progressive discovery of its universal conditions, but as a series of unreconciled disputes over the proper way to conduct oneself as a philosopher. By shifting focus from the philosopher as proxy for the universal subject of reason to the philosopher as a special persona arising from rival forms of self-cultivation, philosophy is approached in terms of the social office and intellectual deportment of the philosopher, as a personage with a definite moral physiognomy and institutional setting. In so doing, this collection of essays by leading figures in the fields of both philosophy and the history of ideas provides access to key early modern disputes over what it meant to be a philosopher, and to the institutional and larger political and religious contexts in which such disputes took place.

The Transformation of Natural Philosophy
  • The Case of Philip Melanchthon
  • Sachiko Kusukawa
  • Published online:
    06 November 2009
    Print publication:
    09 March 1995
  • This book proposes that Philip Melanchthon was responsible for transforming traditional university natural philosophy into a specifically Lutheran one. Motivated by desire to check civil disobedience and promote a Lutheran orthodoxy, he created a natural philosophy based on Aristotle, Galen and Plato, incorporating contemporary findings of Copernicus and Vesalius. The fields of astrology, anatomy, botany and mathematics all constituted a natural philosophy in which Melanchthon wished to demonstrate God's Providential design in the physical world. Rather than dichotomizing or synthesizing the two distinct areas of 'science' and 'religion', Kusukawa advocates the need to look at 'Natural philosophy' as a discipline quite different from either 'modern science' or 'religion': a contextual assessment of the implication of the Lutheran Reformation on university education, particularly on natural philosophy.

Rousseau and Geneva
  • From the First Discourse to The Social Contract, 1749–1762
  • Helena Rosenblatt
  • Published online:
    28 October 2009
    Print publication:
    08 May 1997
  • Rousseau and Geneva reconstructs the main aspects of Genevan socio-economic, political and religious thought in the first half of the eighteenth century. In this way Dr Rosenblatt effectively contextualizes the development of Rousseau's thought from the First Discourse through to the Social Contract. Over time Rousseau has been adopted as a French thinker, but this adoption obscures his Genevan origin. Dr Rosenblatt points out that he is, in fact, a Genevan thinker and illustrates that Rousseau's classical republicanism, his version of natural law theory, his civil religion and his hostility to the arguments of doux commerce theorists are all responses to the political use of such arguments in Geneva. The author also points out that it was this relationship with Geneva that played an integral part in his development into an original political thinker.

Milton and Republicanism
  • Edited by David Armitage, Armand Himy, Quentin Skinner
  • Published online:
    27 October 2009
    Print publication:
    07 December 1995
  • Drawing upon the expertise of both historians and literary critics, this volume examines the classical sources of Milton's republicanism, the genesis of that republicanism in the 1640s, its disappointment in the 1650s and its presence in his work (particularly in Paradise Lost) after the Restoration.

Levi-Strauss, Anthropology, and Aesthetics
  • Boris Wiseman
  • Published online:
    27 October 2009
    Print publication:
    22 November 2007
  • In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic thought, Boris Wiseman demonstrates not only its centrality within his oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. Reconstructing the internal logic of Lévi-Strauss's thinking on aesthetics, and showing how anthropological and aesthetic ideas intertwine at the most elemental levels in the elaboration of his system of thought, Wiseman demonstrates that Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of Lévi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pensée sauvage) at work in totemism, classification and myth-making for his conception of art and aesthetic experience. In this way, structural anthropology is shown to lead to ethnoaesthetics. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics adopts a broad-ranging approach that combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into an unusual and imaginative whole.

Defining the Common Good
  • Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain
  • Peter N. Miller
  • Published online:
    23 October 2009
    Print publication:
    16 June 1994
  • The theme of this book is the crisis of the early modern state in eighteenth-century Britain. The revolt of the North American colonies and the simultaneous demand for wider religious toleration at home challenged the principles of sovereignty and obligation that underpinned arguments about the character of the state. These were expressed in terms of the 'common good', 'necessity', and 'community' - concepts that came to the fore in early modern European political thought and which gave expression to the problem of defining legitimate authority in a period of increasing consciousness of state power. The Americans and their British supporters argued that individuals ought to determine the common good of the community. A new theory of representation and freedom of thought defines the cutting edge of this revolutionary redefinition of the basic relationship between individual and community.

The Case for The Enlightenment
  • Scotland and Naples 1680–1760
  • John Robertson
  • Published online:
    15 October 2009
    Print publication:
    27 October 2005
  • The Case for the Enlightenment is a comparative study of the emergence of Enlightenment in Scotland and in Naples. Challenging the tendency to fragment the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Europe into multiple Enlightenments, the distinguished intellectual historian John Robertson demonstrates the extent to which thinkers in two societies at the opposite ends of Europe shared common intellectual preoccupations. Before 1700, Scotland and Naples faced a bleak future as backward, provincial kingdoms in a Europe of aggressive commercial states. Yet by 1760, Scottish and Neapolitan thinkers were in the van of those advocating the cause of Enlightenment by means of political economy. By studying the social and institutional contexts of intellectual life in the two countries, and the currents of thought promoted within them, The Case for the Enlightenment explains this transformation. John Robertson pays particular attention to the greatest thinkers in each country, David Hume and Giambattista Vico.

Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe
  • Edited by Edmund Leites
  • Published online:
    13 October 2009
    Print publication:
    28 April 1988
  • This examination of a fundamental but often neglected aspect of the intellectual history of early modern Europe brings together philosophers, historians and political theorists from Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, France and Germany. Despite the diversity of disciplines and national traditions represented, the individual contributions show a remarkable convergence around three themes: changes in the modes of moral education in early modern Europe, the emergence of new relations between conscience and law (particularly the law of the state), and the shared continuities and discontinuities of both Roman Catholic and Protestant moral culture in relation to their medieval past.

The Province of Legislation Determined
  • Legal Theory in Eighteenth-Century Britain
  • David Lieberman
  • Published online:
    10 October 2009
    Print publication:
    09 November 1989
  • A comprehensive account of English legal thought in the age of Blackstone and Bentham for nearly a century, The Province of Legislation Determined advances an ambitious reinterpretation of eighteenth-century attitudes to social change and law reform. Professor Lieberman's bold synthesis rests on a wide survey of legal materials and on a detailed discussion of Blackstone's Commentaries, the jurisprudence of Lord Kames and the Scottish Enlightenment, the chief justiceship of Lord Mansfield, the penal theories of Eden and Romilly, and the legislative science of Jeremy Bentham. The study relates legal developments to the broader fabric of eighteenth-century social and political theory, and offers a novel assessment of the character of the common law tradition and of Bentham's contribution to the ideology of reform.

Renaissance Civic Humanism
  • Reappraisals and Reflections
  • Edited by James Hankins
  • Published online:
    06 October 2009
    Print publication:
    22 June 2000
  • Civic humanism has been one of the most influential of all concepts in the history of ideas. In this volume, an eminent team of political theorists and historians of ideas have been brought together to reassess the impact on the subject of the pioneering work of Hans Baron (1966) and J. G. A. Pocock (1975), creating a fresh intellectual landscape in which Renaissance civic humanism can be discussed. Drawing on a wide range of political and historical texts, this book evaluates civic humanism in the light of the emergence of oligarchy, imperialism, patronage politics and the Medici ascendency in Florence in the 14th to 16th centuries. It proposes new understandings of the evolution of important republican concepts such as liberty, the rule of law, virtue, and the common good. This thought-provoking collection represents a significant contribution to the study of republican political ideology in the Renaissance and modern periods.

Pedagogy and Power
  • Rhetorics of Classical Learning
  • Edited by Yun Lee Too, Niall Livingstone
  • Published online:
    30 September 2009
    Print publication:
    27 August 1998
  • Pedagogy and Power is a volume of interdisciplinary essays which explores the political dimensions of Graeco-Roman education and of its subsequent models. Seeking to make the various structures and discourses of intellectual authority more apparent, the essays argue that there is a social context for the knowledge imparted by classical models of pedagogy. They examine how such pedagogues instruct their pupils to function as citizens who rule or are ruled, privileging certain knowledge over others, and including some individuals while excluding others. Overall the book shows that the complex and plural authorities and power that have been associated with classical learning and knowledge are not part of a legacy to be unproblematically inherited or reproduced.

The History of Political Thought in National Context
  • Edited by Dario Castiglione, Iain Hampsher-Monk
  • Published online:
    23 September 2009
    Print publication:
    18 June 2001
  • In this 2001 volume a distinguished international team of contributors characterises the nature of, and developments in, the history of political thought in their respective countries. The essays scrutinise not only the different academic histories and methodological traditions on which the study of the history of political thought has drawn, but also its relationship to cultural and political debates within nations. This collection represents a major contribution to the history of ideas, in which political thought has always been central, whilst reflecting the disciplinary tensions - and national differences - of what remains a 'borderline' subject, located at the intersection of history, politics and philosophy. The different national characteristics taken on by political discourse, and the complex relationship these characteristics have to the aspirations of the discipline itself, are considered in these wide-ranging essays, which cover the history of political thought in the UK, the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Central and Eastern Europe.

Page 5 of 7