Historicity, Meaning, and Revisionism in the Study of Political Thought

J. G. A. Pocock, Q. Skinner, & J. Dunn share several views: political thought has suffered problems traceable to lack of historicity; the solution requires methods for closing the contexts; & common methodology involves reconstructing cognitive contexts to assess past ideas. These views represent a nucleus for revisionism in the study of political thought. Argument is made that such narrowing of interpretive possibilities has forced Pocock, Skinner, & Dunn to exaggerate claims about the actuality of the constants employed as contextual foci. Neither their procedures or theory are valid: language would better be considered a tool for inventiveness than a conventional limitation; the means & ends of political thought are necessarily open-ended; a writer may be led to theorize about practical political matters; political purposes can include potentially effective acts as well as escapist indulgence inacts; to impute a category of intention to a writer to carve the problem is distortive. In short, a method of interpretation for political thought capable of meeting strict historicity demands is premature. G. Schmeling.