Linguistic Contextualism And Medieval Political Thought: Quentin Skinner On Marsilius Of Padua

REVIEW ARTICLE: LINGUISTIC CONTEXTUALISM AND MEDIEVAL POLITICAL THOUGHT: QUENTIN SKINNER ON MARSILIUS OF PADUA Vasileios Syros1,2
Abstract: This article discusses hitherto unexplored aspects of Quentin Skinner’s work on the history of political thought by offering a critical appraisal of the medieval section of Skinner’s Foundations of Modern Political Thought. The article investigates andcritically assesses Skinner’s study of the medieval ‘classics’ with a specific focus on his interpretation of the fourteenth-century political thinker Marsilius of Padua. In particular, the paper demonstrates that Skinner’s analysis of Marsilius’ political ideas is at odds with his own methodology. It also contends that Skinner’s emphasis on the intellectual-linguistic context as a starting point forthe interpretation of major political writers of the past downplays the normative value of Marsilius’ political theory and is, in the end, a narrow interpretation of the overall scope of Marsilius’ Defensor pacis.

One of the largely unstudied aspects of Quentin Skinner’s work on the history of political thought is the medieval part of his Foundations of Modern Political Thought.3 The failure ofscholarship on Skinner’s methodology to offer a critical appraisal of the medieval ‘foundations’ of Skinner’s Foundations, that is, Skinner’s application of his methodology in his study of medieval political thought, can be attributed to a number of reasons. The bulk of scholarship on Skinner’s work on methodology, and especially the papers collected in the Meaning and Context4 and Rethinking theFoundations of Modern Political Thought5 volumes do not look at Skinner’s application of his own methodological precepts in his interpretation of certain ‘classic’

1 The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, The University of Chicago, 1025 E. 58th St., Swift Hall, Chicago, IL 60637–1509, USA. Email: vsyros1@ uchicago.edu 2 I would like to thank Bernardo Bayona Aznar, JanetColeman, Jeong-soo Kim, Evan Kuehn, Cary Nederman, Kari Palonen, Paul Rahe and Gary Shaw for valuable suggestions and criticisms. Thanks are also due to Nathan Tarcov for earlier discussions and for sharing his unpublished manuscript, ‘Quentin Skinner’s Method, Machiavelli and Thomas More’, with me. 3 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 1: The Renaissance (Cambridge, 1978).4 Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed. J. Tully (Princeton, NJ, 1988). 5 Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, ed. Annabel Brett and James Tully (Cambridge and New York, 2006).

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXI. No. 4. Winter 2010

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thinkers andtexts.6 In addition, no attempt has been made so far to examine how Skinner’s methodological programme relates to his study of major figures in the history of medieval Western political thought. As a result, there remains a genuine need to explore the potential and limits of Skinner’s methodology with regard to the study of medieval political ideas. Though the largest part of Skinner’s work isfocused on modern political thought, he clearly intended the medieval and Renaissance section of his Foundations as a propaedeutic to his survey of modern political thought. The objective of this article is to explore Skinner’s study of medieval ‘classics’ with a specific focus on his interpretation of the late-medieval political thinker Marsilius of Padua (1270/1290–1342). I do not purport to offera detailed study of the medieval component of Skinner’s Foundations; instead, I use Skinner’s discussion of Marsilius to evaluate Skinner’s methodological programme. I will demonstrate that Skinner’s study of Marsilius’ ideas contradicts his own methodology. I will also suggest that Skinner’s emphasis on the intellectual-linguistic context as a starting point for the interpretation of classic...