meanings and contexts: mr skinner's hobbes and the english mode of political theory*

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Meanings and contexts: Mr Skinner's Hobbes and theEnglish mode of political theoryTed Miller a & Tracy B. Strong aa Department of Political Science , University of California , San Diego, La Jolla, CA,92093–0521, USAPublished online: 29 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Ted Miller & Tracy B. Strong (1997) Meanings and contexts: Mr Skinner's Hobbes and the English mode ofpolitical theory , Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 40:3, 323-355, DOI: 10.1080/00201749708602455

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Inquiry, 40, 323-56

Review Discussion

Meanings and Contexts: Mr Skinner'sHobbes and the English Mode of PoliticalTheory*

Ted Miller and Tracy B. StrongUniversity of California, San Diego

IThomas Hobbes has been good to Quentin Skinner. From his first publishedwork in the early 1960s until the present book, Skinner has come to Hobbesfor a model of political theory. Hobbes has been a model in two senses. First,he has provided a rich field in which Skinner has been able to develop andapply fruitfully his approach to the study of political thought. Second, he hasprovided Skinner with a model of how to write political theory, 'the Englishmode'. The present book is a culmination of his recent return to work firstpublished by Skinner as long ago as 1964.1

These two models form the overall structure of this book. The first part,fully half the work, is taken up with an extensive description of the historicalcontext and content of the education in rhetoric of someone like Hobbes atthe turn of the seventeenth century. Skinner goes into great detail indiscussing how such individuals would have been expected to master: 'thenames, the definitions and the applications of all the figures on tropes [of thears rhetoricae]... . [T]he deployment of these techniques had become amatter of second nature to the educated....' (p. 211)

Why does Skinner go to such lengths to set out the context of the studyand practice of rhetoric in the seventeenth century? His reasons have to dowith a certain philosophical understanding of language. Quentin Skinner is,with John Pocock, the foremost proponent and one of the founders of whatmight be called 'Cambridge History'. They won adherents to their approach

*Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1996), xvi + 476 pp., ISBN 0-5215-5436-5. All unprefixedreferences in the text are to this work.

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324 Ted Miller and Tracy B. Strong

by their, deflation of Whiggish history, a history they had come to see asnarcissistic and self-serving. In the practice of this approach to historicalinvestigations, Skinner sought to marry the ordinary language approachassociated with J. L. Austin and others with the conception of historicalunderstanding as question and answer associated with R. G. Collingwood, allwithout giving up the possibility of explanation (as opposed simply to theinterpretation) of human action. Austin had argued or, more accurately,shown that philosophical discourse was not radically separate from ordinarydiscourse and that the distinctions that one might see fit to make inphilosophy were in fact distinctions which the language or natural speakersalready made, or at least could make, as long as the words were a 'seriousutterance'.2

Skinner is attracted to Austin because he finds that Austin's analysis ofillocutionary speech-acts (the fact that one is, in uttering a sentence, not onlyuttering the words but also doing something other than expressing thecontent of those words) allows us to see what the agent meant in uttering aparticular sentence as well as, secondly, giving us insight into what theintentions of the agent were. Austin showed, in other words, the possibilityof understanding the intention of an author in writing something, or, moreaccurately, he showed that the intention of the author was revealed in whathe or she chose to do (to say) when.

Austin was concerned to recall that philosophy was about ordinary life and(at least apparently) not primarily with questions in the history of philosophyor in the philosophy of history. From Collingwood, Skinner took the basicnotion that 'any proposition requires us to identify the question to which thatproposition may be regarded as an answer'.3 To do so, however, is to explorethe context in which the particular author meant what he said when he saidwhat he said. Sentences do not have meaning in and of themselves, but onlyas utterances by particular human beings, thus in particular times and places,in a language particular to that time and place. And this meant that one muststudy the historical context of someone like Hobbes. It is important to notethat, for Austin, the context was ordinary and given in the utterance; theproblem was to make the context available, to keep oneself and others fromignoring it, such that meaning and saying did not go unacknowledgedseparate ways.4 For Skinner, on the other hand, at least in relation to hiswork on thinkers like Hobbes, the presumption is that the context must firstbe reconstructed - it is not 'our' job, but the job of an expert and not anordinary human being.

Skinner's basic point is that philosophical texts are acts and are writtenwith an intent to communicating something to someone who might readthem, first and foremost the author's contemporaries. From this it followed,famously, that 'no agent can eventually be said to have meant or donesomething which he could never be brought to accept as a correct description

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Meanings and Contexts 325

of what he had meant or done'.5 Classic texts thus do not show a set ofperennial political questions ('the great questions'), but rather the essentialvariability of the human experience. Any political theory, any interpretationof political thought that attempts to speak sub specie aeternitatis, willnecessarily be wrong, wrong because it is trying to get something right in asetting where there is no right. Skinner is thus committed, bothphilosophically and politically, to a republicanism based neither oneudaimonism nor upon a procedural justice, but on 'common meaningsand purposes'. These purposes can never be once and for all specified,however, 'without violating the inherent variety of human aspirations andgoals'.6

All this commits Skinner, as he happily accepts, to the possibility of theexplanation of the meaning of social actions (including the writing of texts)by reference to the intention (not the motives) of its author in the context of'existing conventions'.7 Skinner sees himself as having achieved a middlecourse between anti-naturalists (Winch, Melden), who place great emphasison intentions, and naturalists (Ayer, Hempel), who insist on the possibilityand necessity of causal explanation.

There is a strong cutting-edge to this stance. If one does not followSkinner's approach to the understanding of what a political theorist intended,one will wind up speaking absurdities, making assertions that could notpossibly correspond to the intelligences of the speakers. Skinner's dismissalof, among others, Leo Strauss and his followers, Jacques Derrida, and, in thisbook, A. P. Martinich, H. Warrender, and F. C. Hood on Hobbes as well aswriters like Donald McCloskey, John Nelson, and Allan Megill on rhetoric isdone with all the confidence that Hobbes displayed in the Dialogus Physicus:

. . . it is not to be doubted that there may be some great consequence for theadvancement of sciences from their meetings [of the Royal Society], that is whenthey have either discovered the true science of motion for themselves or else theyhave accepted mine. For they may meet and confer in study and make as manyexperiments as they like, yet unless they use my principles they will advancenothing.8

The second part of the book is specifically on Hobbes. Reduced to its bareminimum, Skinner claims that there are three stages in Hobbes'sdevelopment as a theorist. In the first he is a late Renaissance humanist,fond of and naturally oriented towards the-rhetorical tropes which had comedown from the renewed interest in Cicero and Quintilian. In Skinner'ssecond stage, impressed by the clarity apparently attainable in geometry andnatural philosophy, Hobbes abandons rhetoric for deductive science. This isthe period of the Elements of Law and De Cive. Finally, Hobbes comes torealize that success for his doctrine requires the combining of science andrhetoric: the result is centrally his Leviathan. The final achievement of

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Leviathan provides for Skinner the initial and paradigmatic version of aparticularly English way of doing philosophy, in which the history ofphilosophy is presented 'as a sequence of more or less ludicrousmisconceptions finally unmasked by [an] unanswerable blend of civilizedsatire and unimpeachable rationality' (p. 437). Skinner clearly finds personalaffinity with this tradition.

As Hobbes wrote little in the rhetorical humanist style, the argument forthe first stage rests to a considerable extent on the development of thecontext for what someone like Hobbes must have known. Skinner considersHobbes's introduction to his translation of Thucydides' Peloponnesian War(1629), his translation (with short introduction) of Aristotle's Art of Rhetoricduring the 1630s (published in 1637), and a long poem in Latin hexameters,De Mirabilis Pecci (circa 1627). (One could add to this two of the threenewly identified early 'Discourses', which appeared so close to Skinner'spublication date that he could only mention them in the introduction.)9

Skinner's analysis of these early works is devoted almost entirely to showingthat Hobbes in fact used the various rhetorical tropes. There is almost noconsideration of what Hobbes actually said and of how his thought wasshaped by his use of classical rhetoric. In any case, for Skinner, Hobbes didnot linger long as a humanist. Starting in the 1630s, he deserted lateRenaissance humanism for a new kind of science. Skinner ascribes this to hisreading of Euclid, to his captivation with the scientific experiments of SirCharles Cavendish, and especially to his acquaintance with Mersenne.Skinner argues that Hobbes undertook the turn to science in order to create'an objective science of virtue, a science grounded on the laws of nature andhence on the paramount moral imperative of seeking peace' (p. 326).

But to what avail were Hobbes's works during the 1640s? Civil war ragedthroughout the decade. If it were true that no one would be so foolish as todispute a proof in geometry {Leviathan, chapter five), it was also the case, asHobbes came to realize, mat in civil philosophy (as opposed to geometry)men's interests were at stake as well as their science. As Hobbes writes in'Review and Conclusion' to the Leviathan, it is only truth 'which opposethno man's profit nor pleasure [that] is to all men welcome'. Therefore, in civilphilosophy, it would not be enough simply to take over the geometricalmethod (cf. Leviathan, chapter four). Consequent to this experience, Skinnerargues, Hobbes came to have a 'new and far more pessimistic sense of whatthe powers of unaided reason [could] hope to achieve' (p. 347). It isHobbes's 'scepticism about the power of reason to move us' (p. 428) thatleads to a union of ratio and oratio in the great works of the later period.While Hobbes retains a distrust of rhetoric he now thinks that the intention ofthe writer would, if correct, justify the use of rhetorical tropes.

Second, and perhaps of least interest, Skinner disposes of a number ofinterpretative musings as to why Hobbes might (in Leviathan) attack

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metaphor yet also so obviously use it (six of such readings are dispatchedwith the blow of one footnote on page 345). Despite this, the book isgenerous to (almost all) existing Hobbes scholarship and goes out of its wayto enlist previous commentators in Skinner's project. (For instance, whilerecognizing that 'my approach differs from his', - which puts it a bit mildly- Skinner goes out of his way to compliment David Gauthier on his TheLogic of Leviathan.)

Third, for Skinner, the mature Hobbes is centrally concerned with anappeal to qualities of character in order to realize his project. Hobbes is, forSkinner, not preeminently a moral egoist nor even a contractarian, but atheorist of the virtues that are to be cultivated and the vices that are to beavoided if social peace is to be preserved.10 Skinner thus argues against theclaim that Hobbes was out to counter the effects of Pyrrhonist skepticism or,for that matter, academic skepticism (p. 9). Skinner reports that he finds noevidence that the epistemological squabbles surrounding the skepticismdebate were of concern to Hobbes (he does not touch on the theologicalones) (pp. 8,299-301). This puts him at odds with recent commentators suchas Richard Tuck who are concerned to see Hobbes as locked in a competitionto be the first to claim credit for solving epistemological questions.11 Instead,Hobbes is more concerned with what one might call the civic skepticismconsequent to the discipline of rhetoric, quite a different matter fromphilosophical skepticism (pp. 9, 299, 301).

Although it is not a mistake, we believe, to criticize Skinner by suggestingthat his stages are not water-tight, such a critique does not really allow one toaddress Skinner's central concern. While this book is certainly about rhetoricand Hobbes, it is also a defense and illustration of what Skinner takes to bethe proper style of doing political theory. Such a style proceeds by puttingtogether the correct elements of various positions and, in recognizing thesense and the nonsense in others, develops a position to which no one can(possibly, sensibly, reasonably) refuse assent. One finds, as noted above, thispattern in Skinner's own more purely philosophical work. It is Hobbes'scombining of different approaches that interests Skinner.

The combination is, however, precisely that. Skinner must refuse anyposition that claims to be a 'grand theory', an overarching account ofeverything. The gist of his introduction to The Return of Grand Theory^2 isto suggest delicately that even those most opposed to grand theory, preciselybecause of that all-consuming opposition, fall back into the sins they claimto oppose. Hobbes's mature work thus need not be, for Skinner, a synthesisof two previously conflicting elements but only a willingness to deploy themboth, guided by the realization that they are only in conflict with each otherif measured against some grand theory. Here is it important to see whySkinner thinks Hobbes moves, in his mature writing, to deploy both scienceand rhetoric.

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One possible argument that Skinner rejects holds that the use of rhetoric inbooks like Leviathan has to do with audience. According to suchinterpretations, Hobbes adopted rhetorical techniques as a means of adjustingto the demands of addressing a popular audience. The elite could be reasonedwith, but the Leviathan was a work designed for a broader audience.13 Thewider reading public (perhaps never as wide as some have imagined)required something other than the closed fist of logic: their philosophicalinadequacies made it necessary to resort to the open palm of rhetoric.Skinner rejects this position, arguing that differences in literary strategiesbetween the major iterations of Hobbes's political doctrine cannot beaccounted for solely in terms of audience. He points, for instance, toHobbes's issuance of the Latin Leviathan in 1668. This, Skinner suggests,stands in contradiction to the audience thesis. Here is a text written in thelanguage of the elite, yet also thoroughly rhetorical. The Latin Leviathanemploys ornatus to a greater extent than its English counterpart; indeed, it is,Skinner states, 'arguably the most rhetorical of all Hobbes's works'. It evenhas an appendix in dialogue, one of the modalities most commonly used bythe humanists. To hold this position, Skinner must and does accept that theLatin Leviathan truly was composed in the late 1660s, and not, as FrançoisTricaud has argued, in an early version prior to the English one.15 Given this,Hobbes's choice to deploy rhetoric cannot be based solely on the need toappeal to a popular audience. Why, Skinner asks, address die learned in thelanguage of the learned and yet also use the techniques supposedly adoptedon the expedient basis of moving the broader audience?

It is probably not possible to resolve the date of the composition of theLatin Leviathan. Tricaud's arguments - that the published version is anamalgam of an earlier version and changes made later for publication - doseem to us more powerful than Skinner allows. But in any case those whomight wish to hold to an 'audience thesis' will hardly find Skinner'sobjections conclusive. One might, for instance, usefully disaggregate 'theelite' as the audience of Hobbes's work, and within this collection find manyelements in which Hobbes never had faith. We wish now to considerSkinner's alternative to the audience thesis and then offer an alternativeof our own. It too relates the differences in the texts to the differencesbetween the audiences (and to the differences between Hobbes and theseaudiences), but not in the same way as the audience thesis to which Skinnerrefers.

As noted above, for Skinner, the shift in literary strategies has to be tracedto a change within Hobbes's reconsideration of the role of rhetoric. ThusSkinner's thesis requires that earlier during his career (at the time when hewas writing Elements and De Cive) Hobbes must have believed that rhetoricwas not only a disreputable means of moving an audience, but also adispensable one. The new rigor made available through the science Hobbes

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had developed made it no longer necessary to pull the audience along byappeals to passion, or by impressive and delightful shows of the author'svirtues. Reason itself could be the guide, and the mercenaries ethos andpathos16 could at long last be sent packing with good riddance.

Then a volte face. Reason does not stand so easily on its own; it is nomatch for human interests.

Hôbbes came to believe that most people are moved less by force of reason than bytheir perceived sense of their own self-interest. By contrast with the optimism of TheElements and De Cive, he additionally insists in Leviathan that, if the requirementsof reason collide with people's interests, they will not only refuse to accept whatreason dictates, but will do their best to dispute or suppress even the clearestscientific proofs if these seem liable to affect their interests in an adverse way. (p.427)17

What choice but to invite back the bad company? Hobbes realizes thatrhetoric is indispensable after all. Many commentators have discerned thecontradiction and explained Hobbes's rhetoric as ironic,18 a discovery to beflaunted so as to embarrass contemporary theorists overconfident in therationality of choice. Skinner, however, argues that the embarrassment wasall Hobbes's.19 The philosopher simply changed his mind, and, insistsSkinner, we ought to have seen the beginnings of this change of heart inHobbes's 'Answer' to Sir William Davenant's 'Preface Before Gondibert'.20

The rhetorical characteristics of Leviathan, therefore, represent a reasonedreconsideration of the prospects for a science of politics unaided by rhetoric.Hobbes's very conception of civil science is, Skinner maintains, modified inLeviathan. Although some reservations remain, Hobbes is said to allowrhetoric to enter by the front door. The theoretical apparatus once used in theearlier works to avoid the contamination of reason by rhetoric now becomespermeable. Hobbes's words not only come dressed in previously forbiddenvestments, but they speak the lines that undo the sumptuary laws, therebygiving the author permission to have so adorned them (pp. 356-75).

There are, however, problems with this reading. The first has to do withthe presumption of the strength of Hobbes's confidence in reason in the early1640s. Skinner writes as though Hobbes thought he had once and for allsolved the problem of making reason's voice heard above the din ofcontroversy and passion. The Dedicatory and opening chapter to theElements of Law admit, we think, of a different reading. In the Dedicatory,Hobbes begins by assigning two kinds of learning, mathematical anddogmatical, to 'the two principle parts of our nature, Reason and Passion'respectively. Mathematics is free from controversy and dispute because itdeals with figures and motions only, 'in which things truth and the interest ofmen oppose not each other'. By contrast, with the dogmatical learning 'thereis nothing not disputable, because it compareth men, and meddleth with their

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right and profit; in which, as oft as reason is against a man, so oft will a manbe against reason'. The hope,' therefore, is to 'reduce this doctrine [i.e. thedoctrine of justice and policy] to the rules and infallibility of reason' byputting down principles as a foundation which the passions, 'not mistrusting,may not seek to displace; and afterward to build thereon the truth of cases inthe law of nature (which hitherto have been built in the air) by degrees, tillthe whole be inexpugnable'.

Skinner reads this as the words of a writer confident in the powers ofreason, but why not read them as the words of a man in despair of reason'spowers? Hobbes embraces mathematics as the last great hope for reason(thereby assigning all previous learning going under the name of reason tothe trash heap). This strategy reflects a great deal more faith in reason (aspracticed by mathematicians only) than in men. In this regard Hobbes's toneresonates with a certain Platonist resentiment: he is as confident in reason ashe is already snide and bitterly resentful of the rest of humanity for itsinability to grasp reason's dictates.21 Hobbes's expectations for reason,whatever they are, are from the beginning paired with a sense of the thinnessof most people's grasp of rational argument. If the Dedicatory teeters on theedge of such a reading, then the third section of the introductory chapterought to push it oven

. . . [I]f reasoning aright I win not consent (which may very easily happen) fromthem that being confident of their own knowledge weigh not what is said, the fault isnot mine but theirs. For as it is my part to show my reasons, so it is theirs to bringattention. [Our italics]

Skinner himself is not insensitive to these elements in Hobbes's attacks norto some of the pessimistic implications of his attack on those that would wedreason with eloquence (pp. 274,282-4); but he belatedly registers the tone ofthe philosopher's desperate frustration with his fellows. Skinner sees thisfrustration only in Leviathan. In fact, the monster of Malmesbury began andended with contempt of his fellow's capacity to hear the voice of reason. Hisearly enthusiasm and pride centered around the notion that he and a fewothers (the true mathematicians) could make out that voice above the roar ofnonsense in conflict. A writer with the confidence Skinner assigns Hobbes,someone assured of his ability to have solved the problem of makingreason's voice heard, would not have thought it would 'very easily happen'that right reason would not 'bring attention'. He would not have been soconcerned that the others would not play their part and pay proper attention.Ultimately, Skinner's analysis tends to blur the distinction between whatHobbes thought he accomplished in the construction of his doctrine andmethods (and might be able to teach those who submitted to his doctrine),and any claim he might make actually to have achieved a concrete and

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practical victory over the sources of swirling confusion. This was a stubborngap that Hobbes always recognized; it becomes obscured when Skinnerwrites: 'Hobbes [holds in the Elements and much more emphatically in DeCive] that ratio possesses an inherent power to persuade and convince, andthus that the idea of a union between reason and eloquence is an irrelevance'(p. 302).

Nor is this a matter only of Hobbes's pessimism. A second problemreflects the fact that Skinner's approach here keeps him from seeing whatappears to us to be important to Hobbes's conception of science. This is nottrivial because Skinner's argument about the mature 'both/and' Hobbes restscrucially on the Skinner's understanding of Hobbes's 'science' in the secondstage. Whereas Skinner spends upwards of two hundred pages on theseventeenth-century understandings of rhetoric, he spends very little on theseventeenth century's understanding of science, let alone on Hobbes's. Thepresumption seems to be that this science was science in a non-naturalistic,deductive sense. Skinner reads De Cive and the Elements of Law asproviding both a critique of humanist rhetoric and a new vision of deductivescience, modeled after that of Descartes but starting with definitions ratherthan indefeasible intuitions (pp. 259-60, 295-6). There is no question butthat the tone of these works is different from the earlier ones, although it isnot clear how much should be made of that as those were principally anintroduction to a translation and a poem. Even disregarding that, what isstriking is how quickly Skinner here accepts a very conventional notion ofwhat Hobbes is up to in relation to science.

We cannot undertake an investigation of seventeenth-century under-standings of science (nor of experience) here. But we can look at Hobbes.Against Skinner, one might note, for instance, that Hobbes's intention in theElements is explicitly 'to put men in mind of what they know already, or mayknow by their own experience'. Indeed, in the Epistle Dedicatory to the samework he apologizes for having written 'more with logic than with rhetoric',as this had to do with the style appropriate for the book.22 In the Preface toDe Cive, he sets down as a 'principle known to all men and denied by none'that every man 'will distrust and dread in each other'. He then goes on to askwhat is one to make of those who would deny such a principle. His answer,paralleled by a famous passage in Leviathan, chapter thirteen,23 is that theiractions will belie their claims and that the philosopher's task is to bring theirwords and actions together. In the Appendix to the Latin edition he writes:

Natural law is eternal, divine and inscribed only in human hearts. But there are veryfew men who know how to examine their own heart and read what is written there.Thus it is from written laws [i.e. from laws which have authority behind them] thatmen know what they must do or avoid.24 [Our italics]

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The internal writing that is in each of our hearts is hard to read. Humans thusneed external written laws, set down by one who can read the human heart,in order to know what it is in their hearts to do. For Hobbes, human use willand can teach us the meaning and a sovereign can be constructed so as toembody it. Skinner and James Tully chose to epigraph Meaning and Contextwith a citation from Wittgenstein ('Words are deeds').25 This is close to butnot quite Hobbes, who is at least already in this work claiming that 'deedscan give us words'.

Even a definition for Hobbes is therefore something that all humans have'in their heart', as he is to say in Leviathan. Geometry, for instance, is God-given; however, its operation depends on explicit human agreement. It isthus conventional; however, it makes error impossible for him who will butpractice it. 'Who', asks Hobbes in chapter five, 'is so stupid as both tomistake in geometry and also to persist in it when another detects his error tohim?'26 So might it also be with civil philosophy. The reason that it is notthis way with civil philosophy at this time is, as Hobbes says in the Elementsof Law, that 'our own discourse, which being derived from the custom andcommon use of speech, representeth not unto us our own conceptions'.27

Thus Hobbes's notion of sapience or science depends on a recovery ofconceptions that are 'our own' and from which we have been, either out ofignorance or self-interest, alienated. However, if this is true, then Hobbes'stask is always how to overcome the particular reasons that keep humans fromrecognizing their 'own conceptions'. As we shall see, these reasons aredifferent from one group to another.

Hobbes does attack previous moral philosophers and the 'rhetorications oftheir speech [by which] they have confirmed themfselves] in their rashlyreceived opinions'.28 But this is not to condemn rhetoric per se, only thosewho use it poorly (as Hobbes presumably does not). Tellingly, in citing thispassage (p. 299), Skinner gives 'rhetorication' (singular, not plural) whichconveys a much stronger attack against the mode itself rather than one on itsmisbegotten practitioners.

Skinner does hit upon something very important as he briefly considersthe moments in the early texts where Hobbes concedes the difficulties ofmaking reason's voice heard. He notes that Hobbes acknowledges thatpersons often suffer from the 'fault of the minde' called 'INDOCIBILITY, ordifficulty of being taught'. This occurs because, 'when men have onceacquiesced in untrue opinions, and registered them as authenticall records intheir minds' it then is 'no lesse impossible to speak intelligibly to such menthan to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over'. Skinner'sassessment of Hobbes's approach to this problem is as follows:

But Hobbes is far from regarding indocibility as an insuperable barrier to theconstruction of a science of politics. As he observes in the same passage, 'if the

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mindes of men were all of white paper, they would almost equally be disposed toacknowledge whatsoever should be in right method, and right ratiocination deliveredunto them.' Nor is this merely a Utopian prospect, for while 'opinions which aregotten by Education, and in length of tyme are made habituall, cannot be taken awayby force, and upon the suddaine', they can nevertheless be taken away by the samemeans by which they were acquired, that is, 'by tyme and Education'. Hobbes'shighly optimistic conclusion is thus that, if the true principles of civil science weretaught in the universities, we should quickly find 'that younge men, who come thithervoyd of prejudice, and whose mindes are yet as white paper', would readily adoptethem and teach them in turn to the generality of the people, (p. 301)

Is this 'a highly optimistic conclusion'? Perhaps only in contrast with thesterner measures that someone like Plato might endorse. Skinner is correct incautioning us against dismissing this as merely Utopian. However, the matteris more complex. While the adoption of Hobbes's writings as school texts iswhat it would have taken to turn Hobbes's methodological/doctrinal victoryinto a concrete and actual victory, he was not alone in pursuing grandeducational reform schemes, nor was he unconscious of competitors. TheHartlib circle were similarly submitting grandiose plans based in part on thedidactic enthusiasms of Comenius.29 William Davenant, Hobbes's poetfriend, would in 1654 (after he had been captured and incarcerated byEnglish authorities) write A Proposition for Advancement ofMoralitie. In ithe proposed a scheme of using publically funded theatrical performances(modeled on Italian comedy, and bolstered by the spectacular effectsDavenant had once used in court masques) to indoctrinate the commonpeople in their duty to the state - at that time, Cromwell's protectorate.Davenant's proposition was in fact conveyed to Hartlib by Hobbes'sacquaintance and fellow mathematician, John Pell.30 If Hobbes's doctrinewere to be taught in the schools, it would have to receive the sovereign stampof approval. All other doctrines that might conflict with Hobbes's (includingthose that threaten its basic presuppositions, such as Boylean vacuumism, i.e.anything that suggested the existence of vacuum, or of incorporealsubstances) would have to count as 'discourse which . . . represented notunto us our own conceptions', thus as seditious teachings to be out-lawed.

If this is optimism, it is not the easy-going type that Skinner suggests. Itsuggests rather that the question of who would teach, and what would betaught (particularly in the wake of Laud), was no small matter to Hobbes norhis contemporaries. Dictating the lessons to be drummed into the heads ofEnglish citizens was serious business. If his remarks on teaching reflect anoptimism, they do so in a way that tempers this sensibility with a gravelyserious determination to rectify a desperate situation. Hobbes is confident(and always remained confident) that the strength and truth of his doctrinewould ensure that the commonwealth the people would form, once theyconducted themselves in an obedient manner according to his doctrine's

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dictates, would stand as stable and peaceful as any commonwealth could.However, Hobbes's certitude in this regard should not cloud our under-standing of the despair and disgust that animated these efforts. He justifiedthese drastic measures by emphasizing his view of the contemporarycircumstances as absolutely miserable. Things were so far gone that therecould be no question of half-way measures.

A third problem with Skinner's account is that it leaves unansweredquestions concerning the quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric. Forexample, Skinner notes that Hobbes's new science of politics (in, e.g., DeCive) was developed as an alternative to the vir civilis, the ideal of theeloquent citizen that had been the guiding principle behind humanisteducation. Did Hobbes's rapprochement with rhetoric mean a return to thisideal? We are not offered an explanation. We are only told that Hobbesrealized the expediency of resorting to rhetoric, while retaining some of theolder reservations. This, however, raises as many questions as it solves. Aswe have noted, in Skinner's account the Leviathan is not an achievedsynthesis but a both/and. The new civil science in Leviathan allows analliance between reason and rhetoric. Was this Hobbes's exclusive deal withthe devil, or (as would seem the more likely case given Skinner's argumentsconcerning the lowered boundaries between the two) is Hobbes saying thatall members of the commonwealth should be a part of this contract? Thisobjection overlaps the last. If the studia hwnanitatis had aimed at producingthe vir civilis, what shall we call the new reason/rhetoric hybrid that Hobbeswould now like to produce through his new doctrine?

Finally, as Skinner himself acknowledges, even the earlier texts (includingDe Cive) will not pass the anti-rhetorical purity test. (We shall return to thisin the next section.) Skinner would have us be satisfied that Leviathan is the'most' rhetorical of Hobbes's three efforts at presenting his doctrine. Here,however, one must ask what it means for a text to be 'most' rhetorical? ForSkinner it means that the text employs a vastly larger number of techniquesidentifiable in the rhetoric manuals such as those of Puttenham, Peacham,and the old humanist classics such as Quintilian. Many rhetoricians duringthis age did in fact collect techniques and individual sententia with aconnoisseur's passion, and so Hobbes's historical context does allow somequantitative measure of rhetoricity. Nevertheless, students of rhetoric (and,in particular, Aristotle's rhetoric, the one translated by Hobbes) have reasonto resist such measures for determining the 'rhetoricity' of a text. Surely thequestion is not the number of techniques, but whether the techniquesavailable for a given rhetorical task (i.e. moving a particular audience to aparticular conclusion) are utilized or not. Thus, the 'rhetoricity' of a textcannot be ascertained until one knows something about the concrete task athand. With what objective do you approach your audience? Hobbes'sgeneration did tend towards the mindless accumulation of rhetorical

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techniques, but their judgment concerning the arts of persuasion was not soclouded by the welter of techniques and sententia that they could notunderstand the tasks of persuasion in more systematic fashion.

They knew, perhaps better than ourselves, that one could choose to dothings with words, as Hobbes himself wrote in Leviathan, chapter four. So,what precisely was Hobbes attempting to do with his words? It is with regardto this question that Skinner's analysis does not go far enough. Of courseHobbes wished to make his opponents look bad; but look bad in whose eyes?Anyone in particular? Certainly Hobbes wanted to use his rhetorical skills toshow that he was right and his opponents were wrong, but an analysis thatdoes not tie this rather general intention to a more concrete set of goalsleaves us with unanswered questions. If Hobbes turned back to rhetoric afterhaving realized its necessity, how are we to connect the rhetoric which heuses in castigating his opponents with the difficult task of overcoming thepull of interests that might lead them off the path of reason?31 We think theway towards more concrete answers to such questions lies in attending to thegap, referred to earlier, between the rationality of Hobbes's doctrine and thestate of affairs for which he introduced his corrective doctrine. The keyquestion concerns what it would have required to implement his plan to havehis doctrine taught in the schools. In Skinner's account, there is noequivalent, concrete goal against which to judge any text's rhetoricity. Thereare the highly specific goals associated with each and every rhetoricalmaneuver, and the terrifically large goal of persuading all of his audience tofollow in the path of reason as he himself has laid it out. In essence, Hobbesis assigned nothing more specific than the task of persuading all of hisaudience to follow in the path of reason as he himself has laid it out. Skinnertherefore seems to risk falling back on a commonly held (yet, we believe,insufficiently detailed) understanding of what Hobbes was trying toaccomplish. The task of defending scientific conclusions against theconfusions spread by his opponents responds to an implicit narrative placingHobbes on the front end of an advancing history of science. It cannot give ussufficient leverage with which to begin to unearth Hobbes's politicalcontexts.

More precisely, why is it that Skinner's book tells us little about the courtand the king, about schools, about the nobility, let alone about Hobbes'srelation(s) to science and religion? Hobbes's context is presented as a singlecontext, more or less constant as Hobbes figures out how to deal with it as awhole. The whole complex argument presented in Steven Shapin and SimonSchaffer's Leviathan and the Air-Pump - which bears directly uponHobbes's understanding of the relationship between facts, 'our discourse',and 'our conceptions' is reduced to three footnotes. Religion is given theback of the hand in some additional notes on A. P. Martinich's recent TheTwo Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics (1992).

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Finally, as against Skinner's earlier tendencies to speak of 'the' context of awork, Johann Sommerville's recent work, while claiming a Skinnerianinspiration, covers a much broader range of topics and contexts.32 We raisethese questions not to endorse these books, but to point out that Skinner'sapproach allows him to avoid a whole set of topics that one might havethought relevant. We will have more to say in our conclusion about theimplications of these matters for the contextualist project.

nUnderstanding Hobbes's goal as having been the teaching of his doctrine,however, offers a plausible solution. What follows is a brief outline of howhis works might be understood along these lines. We must begin with whatHobbes hoped to teach. Certainly, as Skinner suggests, Hobbes sought toteach a new science of justice, a way to differentiate between right andwrong actions based on the authority granted the sovereign as a condition ofthe exit from the state of nature. Such an answer, however, does not fullycapture Hobbes's didactic goals. As suggested above, Hobbes's practical -political - aspirations require more attention. It does not go too far to suggestthat Hobbes counted his political doctrine as his most importantachievement, but Hobbes grounded his doctrine on a basic, new modalityof thought. Not everyone who was to follow his political doctrine need learnthe modality for themselves, but there is no question that Hobbes himselfconsidered the grounding in this mode of reasoning to be the distinguishingfeature of his doctrine - that which made it a 'science' and all other doctrinesmere opinion or worse. This form of reasoning was inspired by the methodsand accomplishments of geometricians: beginning with definitions andworking one logical step at a time, from word to word, sentence to sentence,syllogism to syllogism, until one had assembled a string of causes capable ofyielding desirable effects. This new modality would govern all the separatesubjects taught in the schools, including physics and politics.

We need now to inquire as to the particular assertion of this new modalityin each of Hobbes's texts, and how such assertions could contribute concretepolitical goals. This will bring us back to consideration of Hobbes's worksand their audiences, without falling into the problems that Skinner raisesagainst his version of the audience thesis. Ultimately, the dynamic of eliteversus broader audience misleads by its simplicity; a more appropriate wayto scrutinize and divide Hobbes's audiences concerns their social positionvis-à-vis Hobbes within the hierarchical society within which he soughtfavor, victory, and deference. In spite of citing sources that may have leddown this path, Skinner's analysis and review of rhetoric pass over thearguments of some scholars of rhetoric and poetry who have suggested that

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the goals of the studia humanitatis were not entirely compatible with theroles assumed by courtiers and others engaged in seeking favor in anautocratic society.33 The functions traditionally assigned to rhetoric -creating citizens capable of persuading their equals in the law courts anddeliberative bodies - are no longer a perfect match for those who mustperform in the smaller, more exclusive arena of courtly politics (or even forthose many others who had to seek favor with those who sought favor from amonarch, and so on down the line). Eloquence could be put to use in seekingfavor, but this use entails something different from what was required tofulfill its traditional functions of persuading an assembly (such as alegislative body). Instead, eloquence took a turn towards the poetic, and theskills of the poet became a source of guidance for those who needed toingratiate themselves with their betters, most importantly present and futurepatrons. Poetic skills were cultivated at court because they taught decorum:what could count as fitting conduct in the company of one's superiors,equals, and inferiors (and as poets took on this guiding role, they did notsimply follow predetermined rules of conduct, but used their poetic skills topropagandize for or against rival ideals of 'fitting' conduct at court,including that of the crown). A refined understanding of decorum wasrequired for those who wished to better, or at least preserve, their station inan environment where rivals furiously competed to gain the good graces ofselect patrons.34 We shall also briefly consider some of the trends in didacticrhetoric that Skinner's analysis overlooks in the discussion of De Cive. Thetwo, of course, are not unrelated since a key element of the courtier'sfunction is to render counsel, while the gentler art of instructing a sovereignis taken up in the discussion of Leviathan.

It is not that the more traditional rhetorical situations - such as speaking soas to move and excite a large assembly - disappeared from the scene. Itshould be noted, however, that Hobbes's writings on those that address (oreven make themselves a part of) such assemblies express some of his mostvehement anti-rhetorical sentiments, and this not just in the middle periodbut throughout his works.35 (The other great target is the 'sophistry' of theschools.) One need not believe that Hobbes enjoyed or approved of thecourtly competition for honors, but as much as Hobbes may have detestedthe competition for glory and recognition that courtly environments mayhave engendered,36 he could not wish this system away.37 He could achievelittle for himself or for his program of education by pretending that the logicof patronage applied to everyone but himself. He needed to show his bettersthat he was worthy, and that he merited their favor. It is in this context thatwe need to consider Hobbes's individual works in relation to their particularaudiences.

Let us begin with the Elements. Hobbes tells us that this work was writtenat the request of his patron, the Earl of Newcastle. As Lord Lieutenant of

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Nottinghamshire, a member of the privy council, and governor of the Princeof Wales (later, Charles H), Newcastle's efforts at securing patronage (in partthanks to Charles's detested favorite, Buckingham) were beginning to payoff.38 Less fortunately, his ties obliged him to the circle at court that wasacting in support of the highly unpopular forced loan of 1626-27, a novelway of raising revenue practiced by Charles I as a means of meeting hispressing financial needs without having to secure the consent of theParliament (which he had dismissed as a means of keeping Buckinghamfrom impeachment in 1626). Hobbes himself had been a part of the effort tocollect the highly unpopular loan.39 At the time that the Elements were beingpenned, Newcastle had reason for feeling anxious.40 Charles I had beenoperating largely without parliament, yet needed more funds as a result ofthe disastrous Scottish rebellion (1638-40). A newly called Parliament (theShort Parliament April to May of 1640) allowed many members to vent theirdispleasure; it would not grant the revenues Charles had requested. The Earlof Devonshire had in fact desired that Hobbes himself be elected a memberof this Parliament as the representative of Derby, but the plan failed.41 TheEarl of Strafford, allied with Newcastle and a defender of the crown'sprerogative to act against Parliament in the name of salus populi, would notlong thereafter be impeached by the Long Parliament (called in November,1640). In the meantime, those who hoped to resolve this conflict were by nomeans of a single mind as to how this goal should come about. Newcastleand Hobbes stood firm on the absolutist position. They called for Parliamentto yield, but, as Hobbes petulantly records in Behemoth, his view was notshared even by those who found themselves allied with Charles I.42

Hobbes had been busy developing his new mode of reason, and with thismode his claim was to be able to defeat all other forms of spurious discourse.In effect, we should look at Hobbes as a one-man army, a champion debaterwith a newly devised mode of reasoning, capable of giving combatants alogical thrashing. Hobbes was not averse to fashioning himself in theseterms. In a letter written from France to Edmund Waller43 he remarks onhow he spent his time while visiting his exiled patron, the third Earl ofDevonshire. He notes:

I came hether to see my lord . . . but am no lesse in other Company then his; where Iseme when I can be matched as a gladiator; My odde opinions are bayted. but I amcontented w*, as beleeuing I have still the better, when a new man is sett vpon me;that knowes not my paradoxes, but is full of his owne doctrine, there is something inthe disputation not vnpleasant. He thinkes he has driuen me vpon an absurdity whent'is upon some other of my tenets and so from one to another, till he wonder andexclayme and at last finds I am of the Antipodes to ye schooles. Thus I passe my timein this place.44

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This is the plot of a kung fit movie. Could it be that Hobbes's patrons liked tosee their fighting man put to the test? Were Hobbes's unusual talents asource of entertainment? Court wits in the 1660s, and Charles II himself,were not averse to the suggestion. Aubrey records that they were 'wont tobayte him. But he feared none of them, and would make his part good. Theking would call him the beare: 'Here comes the beare to be bayted!'45

Perhaps more important for our consideration of the Elements, Hobbes'sspecial way of reasoning (and by" extension Hobbes himself) was aninstrument to be used at the service of his masters. As such, we should thinkof Hobbes, and his Elements, as a new weapon in the war of words, used byNewcastle to lob at his Parliamentary opponents. Newcastle offered thecrown the services of his master of logical fencing in much the same spirit ashe would later raise an army to fight on the king's behalf (or, as LordLieutenant, muster troops). The Elements can be thought of as ademonstration project for this new weapon. The logical forks (cf. thefrontispiece of Leviathan) were to be turned against the bumptiousParliament. Geometrical methods, already well associated with martialsciences such as fortification, ballistics, and in Newcastle's case horseman-ship,47 would now become the dreadnought of a defense of absolutism inParliament.48

With regard to this text, it is clear, as Skinner and other commentatorsnote, that there is not much rhetoric present. But why? Hobbes shuns the useof rhetorical persuasion in the context of addressing an assembly such asParliament. That's the way of the enemy, and at the root of the trouble.49

Hobbes's plan is to use the new technology of his precise logic. The chainlinks of definition and proposition, each connecting to form an impossiblebarrier, would create a logically undeniable case for absolutism. Thesystematically woven argument would thwart and crush its dogmaticopponents. In this agonistic setting, there is no room for niceties, and so allrhetorical niceties are reserved for his patron.50 In choosing geometricalreason as their weapon, Hobbes and Newcastle represented themselves astaking the high road of reason.51

There is, nevertheless, a fatalism to the Elements. The work may havecirculated in manuscript form before Charles dismissed the Short Parliamentbut was not dedicated until five days after its dismissal.52 Hobbes andNewcastle, having lost the day (or, perhaps, the chance to engage in theconflict for which they were preparing), could at least offer their opponents aPlatonic sneer. If the Parliament did not hear the reason of their defense ofabsolutism, the fault lay with the Parliamentarians, and not with those whoheld firm to reason's dictates. The fact that they were unwilling to listen tothe voice of reason could only serve to affirm the righteousness andsuperiority of the losers. The loss was testimony to the dogmatic forcesagainst which they were forced to flight.

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The rhetorical qualities of the Elements are determined by its audience.Here Hobbes confronts his and Newcastle's parliamentary opponents, andperhaps more obliquely those inclined to support the crown on grounds notin agreement with the strong absolutist line supported by Newcastle. Inconcluding his account of the laws of nature in the Elements, Hobbes writes:'The sum of virtue is to be sociable with them that will be sociable, andformidable to them that will not.'53 He has here followed his own rule. Likehostile equals in the state of nature, Hobbes uses his offensive faculties topreserve himself in a logical fortress. Perhaps those at first not so inclined tofollow this hard line would, upon seeing the strength of Newcastle's newweapon, run to it for protection and alliance, as might frightened or hopefulindividuals in the state of nature upon witnessing a champion - a first stepthat might send them on the way towards granting their consent, and bindingthemselves to absolute sovereign rule.54 Hobbes very much wished to leadsuch grand unifying efforts, yet these hopes often went bitterly unrealizedthroughout his career (although as Skinner himself so forcefully argued inearlier works, Hobbes was not without his admirers).55

The situation with regard to De Cive is different. Here Hobbes isproceeding with the task of teaching lessons. In this context, he presumes tospeak to those who might find themselves his students were his plan to havehis doctrine taught to have come to fruition.56 His 'Preface to the Reader'begins with a promise, to teach the reader their true duties as men, citizens,and Christians. What is required rhetorically of such a situation? In De Cive,Hobbes primarily57 addresses those who would play the part of his students,the young men who would attend the universities where his doctrine istaught. Writing to his would-be students, one might assume that Hobbeswould have little need for rhetoric. What else can his students do but obeytheir master? In spite of the asymmetrical relation, Hobbes does userhetoric.58 His somewhat immodest preface would establish his credibility asa teacher of valuable lessons, someone whose teachings his students shouldbe thankful for in light of the desperate times:

I have not yet made it [De Cive] out of a desire of praise (although if I had . . . ) butfor your sakes, Readers, who I perswaded my selfe, when you should rightlyapprehend and thoroughly understand this doctrine I here present you with, wouldramer chuse to brooke with patience some inconveniences under government . . .then selfe opiniatedly disturb the quiet of the publique . . .

Sometimes he employs the rhetoric of the kind and gentle master - themaster who does not simply cram his lessons down his students' throats butrecollects his experience as testimony to the need for his teaching. Heconsoles, for example, the student who might favor democracy overmonarchy. He fears that many will likely prefer the former because it affords

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greater opportunities for the ambitious and talented. To those anxious toparticipate in public business and to win praise for their abilities, Hobbesoffers this bit of advice - not to say rhetoric:

. . . and what is a grievance, if this [monarchy over democracy] be none? De tell you:To see his opinion whom we scome, preferr'd before ours; to have our wisdomeundervalued before our own faces; by an uncertain tryall of a little vaine glory, toundergoe most certaine enmities (for this cannot be avoided, whether we have thebetter, or the worse); to hate, and be hated, by disagreement of opinions; to lay openour secret Counsells, and advises to all, to no purpose, and without any benefit; toneglect the affaires of our own Family: these, I say, are grievances. But to be absentfrom a triall of wits, although those trialls are pleasant to the Eloquent, is nottherefore a grievance to them, unlesse we will say, that it is a grievance to valiantmen to be restrained from fighting, because they delight in it.

Thus Hobbes recounts to his students his rough days in politics, but it is notmerely in those sections where Hobbes recommends (though does not claimto demonstrate)60 monarchy over other forms of government. In Chapter OneHobbes engages in a series of descriptions of human conduct worthy of anydidactic satirist.

Skinner's analysis of Hobbes's satirical writing is unfortunately limited tothe metaphors, similes, other 'mocking' tropes and figures employed inLeviathan against specific political or philosophical camps. He does notconsider Hobbes's work in the context of the broader uses of satire employedby his contemporaries. Satire was the tool not just of those who hoped tomock their political opponents; it was also the tool for didacts and socialcritics such as Ben Jonson (who Hobbes much admired) and Bishop JosephHall. In these instances the attack strategy need not necessarily finger aparticular opponent for ridicule. Instead, the satirist attacked vices on a levelnone too specific. The sting of the attack, the laughter directed towards theridiculous character or characters, was to encourage the audience to correctthese faults in themselves, not necessarily to convince the audience that theauthor's hated opponents were contemptible. (Ben Jonson often professedthe first motive, but his critics and rivals attributed his satires to thesecond.)61 Among those that used the techniques of satire, therefore, therewere goals that certainly went beyond that of personally directed mockingand derision. They used satire for the sake of teaching the audience todistance itself from the faults and vices that they put on display, often inlavishly detailed word pictures. Thus Ben Jonson and Hall wanted to satirizevices resembling those of their contemporaries; the vices of fantastic villainsas presented in some tragedies were didactically inadequate. Jonsonarticulates the strategy: if the audience were to laugh at these faults,exemplified by the persons put on display, they would be forced to measurethemselves against the elevated moral individual that could rightfully look

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down in scorn and laugh at the vices put up for ridicule.62 Properly executed,satires could compel their audience members to become good by proddingthem to distance themselves from the vices they might be tempted toindulge.63

Hall helped foster the satiric form called 'character writing' or'charactery' (also used by Jonson) in partial imitation of Aristotle's studentTheophrastus.64 Here, pithily drawn, detailed, word pictures of vices wereput before the reader: the actions of a person exemplifying the vice arecompounded one with the other. Take the superstitious, and not accidentallyCatholic, man:

This man dares not stirre forth till his brest be crossed, and his face sprinkled; if butan Hare crosse him the way, he retomes; or if his journey began unawares on thedismall day; or if he stumble at the threshold. If he see a Snake unkilled, he feares amischiefe; if the salt fall towards him, he lookes pale and red, and is not quiet till oneof the writers have powred wine on his lappe; and when he neezeth, [sic] thinks themnot his friends that uncover not . . .65

The purpose was to push the reader away from vice by revealing it in itsnakedness, a deciphering of troublesome attributes unseen by less discerningand morally diligent eyes. 'If though doe but read these . . . I have spentgood houres ill; but if though shalt hence abjure those Vices; which beforethough thoughtest not ill-favoured,... or shalt hence find where thou hastany little touch of these evils, to cleare thy selfe . . . neither of us shall needto repend of our labour.'66 Hall, in fact, considered these works as anefficient substitute for his sermons.67

Hobbes does not use the techniques of charactery in precisely the sameway.68 He was less hopeful for the reform of individuals, but he held outhigher hopes for the possibility of the artificial man (city, or commonwealth)cracking down on its faults. Thus, when Hobbes writes of the 'true delightsof Society unto which we are carryed by nature', he describes this scene:

But if it so happen, that being met, they passe their time in relating some Stories, andone of them begins to tell one which concernes himselfe; instantly every one of therest most greedily desires to speak of himself too; if one relates some wonder, therest will tell you miracles, if they have them, if not, they'l fein them: Lastly, that Imay say somewhat of them who pretend to wiser then others; if they meet to talk ofPhilosophy, look how many men, so many would be esteem'd Masters, or else theynot only love not their fellowes, but even persecute them with hatred . . ,69

Hobbes's remarks on why persons are anxious to be the last to leave theroom ('we wound the absent') may also be added to the list. These wordpictures do more than voice Hobbes's dissent from Aristotle's belief that weare born fit for political society. They target the dangerous flaws that Hobbesfinds ineradicably seated in the vast majority, yet they lay bare and push the

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reader away from whatever faith he might have had that anything but fearwill ensure peaceful sociability. As an empirical argument against Aristotle,these examples are not very convincing, but as a form of revealing scrutiny -typical of the aims of charactery - they represent something much moremoving.

Hobbes's resemblance to Hall's Theophrastian techniques underscores apoint already made, briefly, by Brian Vickers.70 Skinner's account of therhetorical tradition is strongly centered in Roman practice. As such, theaccount tends to submerge alternative forces that were giving shape torhetoric in Hobbes's day. Hall illustrates this doubly, in that he combines theGreek influence (Theophrastus) with the explosive Puritan satiric tradition.71

While Hall (and Jonson) are certainly mentioned, Skinner's framework doesnot sufficiently capture these significant elements on the humanistic scene.72

Hobbes's humanism reflected a concern with a revitalization of Greekinfluences (the translations of Aristotle's Rhetoric and Thucydides, not tomention his interest in Euclid).73 This seems to outweigh Skinner's reasonsfor a self-imposed focus on Latin Ciceronian/Quintillian rhetoric: becauseLatin was the rule and 'good Graecians' (as Aubrey described Hobbes) werethe exception in Tudor schooling.74 The Senecan style, clipped, terse, andsystematic (and very much in the spirit of Hobbes's own concerns over theneed to connect words with their conceptions) and which developed inopposition to the insubstantial character of Ciceronian styles, is mentionedby Skinner, but the connection between this and Hobbes's preference forcertain Greeks is not fully developed.75

Finally, there is Leviathan. Why is this text so larded with rhetoricaltwists, and how does Hobbes's use of rhetoric reflect the specialcharacteristics of his audience? In this brief space we cannot answer thesequestions in sufficient detail, nor consider the various techniques used in thetext. We would suggest, however, that the most important member ofLeviathan's audience is the sovereign. Of course, in addressing thesovereign, Hobbes is now addressing one of his betters, and not just anybetter, but the better of all other betters (the one Hobbes believes shouldoutshine the rest as the sun outshines the stars).76 Moreover, in this workHobbes is not only presenting his doctrine in the best light in order to make itpleasing to those above him, he is also making a case for his great desire tosee it taught in the schools. In his conclusion, he reminds his readers of hiswish, ' . . . I think it may be profitably printed, and more profitably taught inthe Universities'.77 Leviathan, therefore, addresses those 'to whom thejudgment... belongeth'.78

But how does one speak on behalf of a doctrine when addressing thesovereign? As in De Cive there is an asymmetry between the author and theaudience, but in this case it is reversed. A student may be taught a lesson, hisreasoning may be put to the test, taxed; he may be cajoled and goaded. In the

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Elements, the enemy is met with the sharp end of Hobbes's weapon, and so issubject to more hostility than is the student as the competing sides strive tosubordinate one another. In Leviathan Hobbes speaks to those who may givethe yea or nay to his request, and these clearly do not have to submit toHobbes's reasoning. Moreover, attempting to force them to do so would be atremendous breach of decorum, an act of unforgivable presumptuousness.Those who hold the responsibility to safeguard the commonwealth byensuring that its citizens are taught the proper doctrine will want to knowthat the doctrine is the best available. In that it must be reasonable, its reasonmust be infallible. In that it will form the bulwark of the commonwealth'sdefense against seditious and dangerous views, they will want a demonstra-tion of its strength, an illustration of its capacity to handily defeat itsopponents. And, of course, it must be consistent with the commands ofscripture. Here, we would suggest, are some of the critical standards bywhich Hobbes would have his doctrine approved and mandated at theuniversities.

These are the aspirations to keep in mind when assessing the rhetoricalburden shouldered by the Leviathan. Like the gladiator performing before hisregal audience, Hobbes must win favor by deftly sending his opponentsdown to defeat. Also, like the gladiator, Hobbes cannot prove his merit byturning his weapon on those from whom he seeks favor. So too, he cannotask his elevated audience to enter into the tussle.

This suggests a different interpretation of Hobbes's use of rhetoric fromSkinner's. On our reading, Hobbes's views on the uses of rhetoric do notradically change, nor does his basic agenda - disciplining the commonwealthwith his doctrine. What changes from the Elements to De Cive to Leviathan,is the relation of the audience members to Hobbes himself. If Hobbes doesnot toy with rhetoric when fighting with his equals in the arena ofParliament, it is because he believes he has a better weapon - his infalliblelogic. Moreover, rhetoric before an assembly (particularly one disposedtowards 'democratical' sentiments) is precisely the kind of thing that heconsiders dangerous. The free play of the passions cannot be permitted tothose who must submit to rule. On the other hand, with those who alreadyrule and from whom Hobbes seeks favor and to whom he defers, it is not hisstation to forbid them their amusements. His efforts must be devoted todemonstrating the worth of his efforts, but on the terms of those entitled tomake the judgment. He urgently wishes to illustrate the power of his doctrineand his reason, but he cannot do so by inviting his would-be patrons into thering with him.79 Instead, he must stage a spectacle. He must illustrate hispower and show that he merits their favor with a bold and daring display. Ifhe cannot ask his patrons to follow his discourse and observe his triumphs asa student, fellow scholar, or opponent, he will allow himself to use eloquencein order to make his power or worthiness tangible to his audience. Here,

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then, is a legitimate use for the mocking tropes and other techniques pointedto by Skinner, and one need not hold (as would seem suggested by Skinner'sinterpretation) that Hobbes would have approved of employing so manyrhetorical devices under different circumstances.80 On our reading, Hobbes'sviews on rhetoric remain largely unchanged, and the differences that Skinnerattributes to a volte face represent differences in the relation between Hobbesand his audiences. Thus, the interpretation presented here inverts theconclusions drawn by the 'audience thesis'. Hobbes does not use rhetoricbecause he is trying to accommodate the broader audience. Rather, it is whendirectly addressing his broader audiences that Hobbes forbids himself to userhetoric. On the other hand, eloquence might be excusable when it wasn'tused to excite the passions of the 'democratical' masses (or when it wasworking to sustain a school doctrine destined to undermine the common-wealth), but it was a permissible tool when it was employed for the sake ofconvincing those in the seats of authority to make the right doctrine the law(or the teaching) of the land.81

mIn conclusion, what do the above considerations suggest about Skinner'scontextualism and its Hobbesian characteristics? At the end of the firstsection, we briefly mentioned recent historical interpretations of Hobbes thatdo not figure very large in Skinner's Hobbes. Our second section is alsoconcerned with missed opportunities, this time closer to sources andarguments in proximity to the aims of Reason and Rhetoric in thePhilosophy of Hobbes. We think it appropriate to make a distinction betweenthese two criticisms. A point-by-point analysis of the various issues coveredin, e.g., Sommerville's work with those considered in Skinner's would beunfair. No book of contextual interpretation can possibly hope to cover thewaterfronts of historical context. Context goes on forever, and it is againstthis endless expanse that one must deploy the force of interpretation. Choicesare made, and therefore contexts are selected. Some possible choices, such asthose we mention in the second section, have, we think, a claim on Skinner'sproject. Even though he excludes or de-emphasizes them, it is reasonable toconclude that they might have been included, even accepting that this is abook about reason and rhetoric and Hobbes's philosophy and not a bookabout, say, Hobbes and his conflict with the schools, or with his other rivalsor bugbears. Other elements of context, however, have a much harder timemaking this claim. No one would have thought it strange if Skinner had saidsomething intelligent about toleration in this work (as does Sommerville),but it would have been difficult to have required it of him simply becauseissues of toleration were a part of Hobbes's context.

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These points seem banal: why bring them up at all? As suggested at theclose of section one, Skinner's earliest defenses of his approach tointerpretation spoke of an author's context as though it were somethingwith an existence independent of the interpreter. It was there to be recovered,always ready to invalidate as ahistorical those interpretations in whichpresent paradigms contaminated the past. As noted above, Skinner's versionof the Austin/Collingwood combination was to give us sufficient leverage toreject those interpretations which the author himself could not haverecognized. Here there is a strong connection with the Hobbesian side ofSkinner's approach to philosophy which we mentioned in section one. Whencontextualist interpretation tries to play king of the hill, to take it upon itselfto decontaminate our understanding of the past, it must also invalidate thepossibility of viable multiple perspectives or readings.

Perhaps someone might respond that context can only be elaborated a partat a time. Wouldn't this allow Skinner a way to acknowledge the need for adivision of labor in historical work, without having to yield on his basicclaims concerning meaning and context? We think not. Who determines theboundaries of these partitions? What such answers push away is the questionwhich we think Skinner's contextualism does not adequately confront. Eventhe partitioning of context is a construction that always bears the imprint ofthe interpreter; it is precisely this imprint that the Hobbesian aspect ofSkinner's project will not allow him fully to investigate. How might such aninvestigation begin? Instead of asking how one can understand meaning incontext, one would also want to ask how it is that interpretations themselvescome to count as meaningful to their audiences. Is there, or should there be,only one route to this meaningfulness with a historically distant author suchas Hobbes, or is there more than one? Need significant interpretations thatcome to differing conclusions over a single author always find themselves incompetition?

The fact is they need not be, and one need not believe that allinterpretations are equal when one accepts that the different ways tosignificant interpretation are manifold and beyond our ability to predict.There are some signs that Skinner may be headed in the direction of thispluralism. As noted, he draws a variety of different sources, and not all ofthem have played the game of interpretation according to contextualist rules.This is in marked contrast to the out and out hostility shown to ahistoricalinterpretation in his earlier works.

The danger in Skinner's approach shows up at the moments when despitethe charity he evinces towards many other readings he feels entitled, indeed,required, to resort to Hobbesian derision towards some. This is notably thecase in the introduction, where the works of those interested in the 'Rhetoricof the Human Sciences' are dismissed out of hand.82 Skinner's point is thatthese authors do not mean what Hobbes meant by rhetoric when they speak

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of the rhetorical character of the text. Although we are not convinced thatSkinner has shown us all of this topic that needs consideration as a historical

. question, let us assume that what Nelson, McCloskey, and Megill (forinstance) mean by rhetoric is not what Hobbes and his contemporariesmeant. Indeed, one would be surprised if there were such agreement. Thisstrikes us as a good argument for using caution when setting out to discussrhetoric in the seventeenth century. (Does anyone really think that theseauthors argue that we ought freely to ignore considerations of context whendoing historical inquiry?) It does not strike us as a particularly good case fordeclaring, as does Skinner, rhetoric to be a 'much abused term'. We cannotforget present conceptions of rhetoric, even if we need to interrogate thembefore doing work we would want to call historical. Such notions of rhetoricmight still have something valuable to contribute to a discussion of Hobbes.Skinner's footnotes, which acknowledge a debt to authors who use broaderconstructions of rhetoric, such as David Johnston and Victoria Kahn, wouldseem to suggest that they can and do, but his present defense ofcontextualism goes in a different direction. Skinner seems determined tomake the case for caution a case for prohibition. He would prefer to declare àselective quarantine in Hobbes's England: anyone carrying the 'muchabused' contemporary rhetoric concept must not be allowed in for fear ofcontamination.

It is quite clear that 'context matters', but the 'context' remains inSkinner's usage most often invoked (in historical detail) rather thaninvestigated. The definition of context remains for Skinner historical. Thisshould be contrasted to Austin's. For Austin, context was the ordinary,everyday, with all the multiplicity that everydayness has, in the seventeenthcentury as it does now. (We hope we have outlined a path towardsunderstanding Hobbes in context that is closer to this notion.) Hobbes was,we hope to have shown, indeed doing things with words. But the contexts inwhich he meant, or tried to mean, what he said included courtiers, monarchs,opponents, patrons, students, and people he thought simply foolish. Theindeterminacy of Austin's understanding of context - the possibilities itopens up, rather than shuts down - does not make it a particularly good toolfor the exclusion of alternative interpretations. This is not a flaw.

That is where we think Skinner and Austin part company. Key, here, is aclause in a sentence from Skinner cited above on page 324 where he suggeststhat for a claim about an agent to be true it has to be possible for that agent tobe 'brought to accept' the claim as correct description. How, might one ask,is the agent to be brought to accept a claim. There are, in Skinner's accountof Hobbes, two parallel methods. The first is 'unimpeachable rationality', thesecond is 'civilized satire'.

'Unimpeachable rationality' is, in the end, a reference to a commonlyaccepted authority. But here one would want to know when rationality is

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unimpeachable, and on what basis. Here Skinner's model appears to be avariant on some combination of Kant and Habermas. He refers to the 'stronganalogy with current attempts to reformulate Kantian principles ofuniversalizability by appealing to models of moral dialogue' and citesBenhabib (p. 145n). While we cannot go into it in this space, it is clear thatthis appeal to unimpeachability is not without its problems.83

What is worrisome about this mode of doing political theory comes whenit feels itself entitled to wield the 'civilized satire' side of the pitchfork. Tothe degree that Skinner cannot find significant common ground withsomeone, the proportion of civilized satire rises in relation to that ofunimpeachable rationality. Hence his all too quick dismissal of Nelson et al.A similar, even more pronounced tendency shows itself, for instance, in hisnon-encounter with Jacques Derrida. His only move against Derrida is satire.'I protest only', he writes, 'at the assumption that it follows from this that thekinds of intentions I have been discussing are, as Derrida claims, in all cases"in principle inaccessible." [with a footnote to Derrida's Spurs] . . . Dogsoften disclose by their responses that they are able to distinguish between anaccidental and a deliberate kick. Derrida ought surely to be able to rise to atleast the same interpretative heights.'84

These are sentences of a man who really does not know what to say tosomeone like Derrida. To do that would have required that he take seriouslywhat Derrida means by 'signature' in a part of the sentence from Spurs thatSkinner does not cite; which might have in turn led him to Derrida's essay onAustin.85 He would then have had to examine the difference between asignature (something which is witnessable and has do with what one is, in allits impurity) and an intention, which, Derrida says elsewhere, is 'never . . .completely present to itself and its content'.86 And this might have ledSkinner to wonder in a more complex fashion how Hobbes is bound to andby his words. He would have richer interpretations with a more relaxedreading of Austin.

The point here is not that Derrida is right - in fact he seems clearly to havegot at least half of Austin wrong - but that the sneer comes too easily here toSkinner's pen: it is at the expense of philosophy. It may be that Hobbesstarted the English tradition of doing political philosophy. One wouldn'treally want to continue it, would one?

NOTES

1 These include four articles focusing on rhetoric and late Renaissance humanism. They arelisted on p. 462.

2 Quentin Skinner, '"Social Meaning" and the Explanation of Social Action', Politics,Philosophy and Society, 4th series, ed. P. Laslett, W. G. Runciman and Q. Skinner (Oxford:Blackwell, 1972), p. 141. For J. L. Austin's use of 'serious', see his How to Do Things withWords (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 9. For the demonstration that

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this is not Austin's last word on seriousness, see Stanley Cavell, A Pitch for Philosophy(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 88-95.

3 Quentin Skinner, 'A Reply to My Critics', Meaning and Context. Quentin Skinner and hisCritics, ed. J. Tully (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 274. Henceforth MC.Skinner points towards similar considerations in David Wootten, 'Introduction' to DivineRight and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England (Harmonds-worth: Penguin Books, 1986).

4 See here J. L. Austin, Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 182 ('APlea for Excuses').

5 Quentin Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas', in MC, p. 48.6 Quentin Skinner, 'The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty', in Gisela Bok, Quentin

Skinner and Maurizio Viroli (eds), Machiavelli and Republicanism (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1990), pp. 307, 308.

7 Skinner, '"Social Meaning" . . .', op. cit., p. 155.8 Cited from Steven Shapin and Simon Shaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 347.9 Noel B. Reynolds and Arlene W. Saxenhouse (eds), Three Discourses. A Critical Modern

Edition of Newly Identified Work of the Young Hobbes (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1996). The first Discourse is about law and reason, in a kind of 'standard' Hobbesianmanner, the other two are what Skinner calls 'conventional humanist literary exercises'('Bringing Back a New Hobbes', New York Renew of Books, 4 April 1996, p. 58).

10 Skinner's elaboration of this Hobbes is already strongly present in his 'Thomas Hobbes:Rhetoric and Morality', Proceedings of the British Academy 76 (1991), pp. 1-61. Skinnercalls attention to this essay on p. 11.

11 See Richard Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572-1651 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993), pp. 285-98.

12 Quentin Skinner (ed.). The Return of Grand Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1985).

13 Skinner here cites David Johnston's The Rhetoric of Leviathan (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1986). To be fair, Johnston's argument is somewhat more complicated.Very much like Skinner, Johnston sees a Hobbes who experiences a waning faith in thepower of reason to persuade his audience. For Johnston, the appeal to the elites (in hisearliest works) is abandoned by going over the heads (and in some sense, outside the time)of the current elites or readers. Hobbes's Leviathan is, on this reading, addressed both farand wide. It takes aim at the historically situated obstacles to Hobbes's rationality (such assuperstition), as well as recruiting rhetorical means of moving the audience. For Johnston, itis reasonable to assume that Hobbes's thought-deed might require generations to takeeffect Many of these aspects are acknowledged by Skinner in his other footnotes. Wemerely wish to note that when Johnston uses the broad-audience thesis to explain Hobbes'srhetoric, it is a part of his argument and not the totality.

14 Skinner, pp. 426-27.15 François Tricaud, 'Introduction', to Thomas Hobbes, Léviathan (Paris: Sirey, 1983), pp.

xix-xxix. Skinner merely says that he cannot follow Tricaud in his conclusion that the LatinLeviathan was written before the English version (even if only published some seventeenyears after). Tricaud argues that the Latin Leviathan represents an intermediary stepbetween the 'city' focus of De Cive and the sovereignty focus of Leviathan.

16 More specifically the techniques organized into the realms of inventio, elocutio, and theassociated ideal of the vir civilis (mentioned above.)

17 Key arguments are presented on pp. 347-56.18 See, e.g., Victoria Kahn, Rhetoric, Prudence, and Skepticism in the Renaissance (Ithaca:

Cornell University Press, 1985). Kahn's reading is, nevertheless, useful and insightful, asSkinner acknowledges.

19 Skinner, p. 363.20 Thomas Hobbes, English Works (ed. Molesworth), vol. 4, pp. 441 ff. See Skinner pp.

359-60.21 This snobbery was turned into an art-form by Ben Jonson, whom Hobbes much admired

and whom he consulted in his translation of Thucydides. Cf. Hobbes's comments on

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Thucydides in On the Life and History of Thucydides, 'It need not be doubted, but fromsuch a master Thucydides was sufficiently qualified to have become a great demagogue,and of great authority with the people. But it seemeth he had no desire at all to meddle inthe government: because in those days it was impossible for any man to give good andprofitable counsel for the commonwealth, and not incur the displeasure of the people. . . hethat gave them temperate and discreet advice, was thought a coward, or not to understand,or else to malign their power . . . it is hard for any man to love that counsel which makethhim love himself the less', etc. (italics ours). Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War: TheComplete Hobbes Translation, ed. David Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1989), pp. 571-2.

22 EL Pt. 1, ch. 1, sect 2 EW p. 1; E: Epistle, EW p. xv. Skinner thinks this ironic. Perhaps so,but as we show below such irony does not entail that Hobbes rejects at this time all forms ofrhetoric in all circumstances.

23 'It may seem strange, to some man that has not well weighed these things, that natureshould thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade and destroy one another. And he may,therefore, not trusting to this inference made from the passions, desire perhaps to have thesame confirmed by experience' (our italics).

24 'Appendix to Latin Leviathan' in Tricaud, op. cit., p. 760. For a more extensive discussionof these matters see Tracy B. Strong, 'How to Write Scripture: Hobbes on Words andAuthority', Critical Inquiry (November, 1993).

25 A bit misleadingly, one might say. The citation is from Culture and Value (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 46e. If one assumes that the final version of this isPhilosophical Investigations, §546, we find: 'Words are deeds also.' One can make much ofthe adverb.

26 This claim on Hobbes's part is at the root of why it was so painful for him to retract hisclaims in De Corpore to have squared the circle.

27 Elements of Law, pt 1, ch. 5, sect. 8, p. 21.28 De Cive, Dedication.29 Charles Webster, Samuel Hartlib and the Advancement of Learning (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 1-72.30 James Jacob and Timothy Raylor, 'Opera and Obedience: Thomas Hobbes and A

Proposition for Advancement of Moralitie, By Sir William Davenant', The SeventeenthCentury, 6 (1991) 2, pp. 205-50; the Proposition as well as summary of the proposition arereprinted as appendices on pp. 241 ff. Jacob and Raylor's wide-ranging analysis isinteresting and provocative - suggesting, for example, connections between Davenant'sargument for this project and the poet's own selective misreading of Hobbes'sunderstanding of the passions. Those concerned with the issues of rhetoric, education,passions, and interests, and Hobbes's relation to these issues will find this analysis ofHobbes, Davenant and the Cavendish circle of interest Our thanks to Patricia Springborgfor bringing it to our attention.

31 Skinner's analysis in chapter ten illustrates Hobbes's use of specific techniques, but doesnot link these uses to the larger task of persuading an audience that their interests are atstake.

32 Johann Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context (New York:Macmillan, 1992).

33 Daniel Javitch, Poetry and Courtliness in Renaissance England (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1978); and 'Il Cortegiano and the Constraints of Despotism', inCastiglione, The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, ed. Robert Harming and DavidRosand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 17-28; Frank Whigham, Ambitionand Privilege: The Social Tropes of Elizabethan Courtesy Theory (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1984). Skinner uses both sources. Another classic in this genre is LouisMontrose, 'Of Gentlemen and Shepherds: The Politics of Elizabethan Pastoral Form', ELH50 (1983), 3, pp. 415-59. These authors are not, of course, in complete agreement.Following Javich's analysis of Puttenham, Whigham and Montrose argued that theguidance Puttenham was offering was not simply analogous to courtly conduct but also amedium of courtly assertion. As the author of a defense of poetry dedicated to Queen

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Elizabeth, Puttenham was not only reading the rules of courtly behavior, he was rewritingthem in order to suit his own needs, and was cautiously criticizing elements of court life.

34 In his discussion of decorum, Skinner cites one of the principle figures who make suchpoints, Javich, yet he does not engage Javich's challenge to continuity between classicalrhetoric and the rhetorical skills required in these new circumstances (p. 193). Puttenham, akey exemplar of the new, more courtly, rhetoric, is of course mentioned throughoutSkinner's work; in connection with decorum, Skinner notes that Puttenham, 'insists on thevalue of "ornament" as a means of making the truth more attractive, and underlines thealleged parallel with the artful enhancement of feminine beauty in a manner evidentlydesigned to appeal particularly to his courtly audience' (ibid., p. 196). Nevertheless,Skinner does not connect the concern with ornament with the pleasure demanded by thosewho have favor to dispense. Thus, the absence of eloquence in this context could representan affront, something Skinner does not take account of in discussing Spencer's reading ofKing Lear. Ibid., 197-8.

35 E.g., Leviathan, ch. 19, sect. 5; ch. 25, sect 15. All citations are to the Curley edition(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994) and refer to chapter and Curley's numbering within thechapters (which is virtually identical to the Molesworth edition's numbering). All furthercitations will be abbreviated listing chapter first followed by the section number.

36 Much of what Hobbes has to say concerning vainglory and pride appears in the context ofhis discussions of the state of nature, the laws of nature, or in his decrying of thevainglorious men who turn to assemblies in order to satisfy their hunger for power andrecognition. Nevertheless, he also connects the destructiveness of these passions with thosewho seek honore and offices from the sovereign authority. See, e.g., Lev., 18, 15; 19; 27, 13,17; 11, 3, 7. Note that in chapter 18 Hobbes recommends a strong-willed sovereign toprevent the facetiousness of the prideful contenders for favor, but he does not do away witha system of titles of honor, or appointments.

37 For some recent (by no means comprehensive) discussions of patronage relations andcourtly address in the Stuart Era see, Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption inEarly Stuart England (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990); Paul Seaward, The CavalierParliament and the Reconstruction of the Old Regime, 1661-1667 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1988); Richard Cust, The Forced Loans and English Politics 1626-1628(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); R. Malcolm Smuts, Court Culture and theOrigins of a Royalist Tradition in Early Stuart England (Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press, 1987); Kevin Sharpe, Criticism and Compliment: The Politics ofLiterature in the England of Charles I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987);Derek Hirst, Authority and Conflict England, 1603-1658 (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1986); Leah Marcus, The Politics of Mirth. Jonson, Herrick, Milton,Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1986); Anthony Fletcher, 'Honor, Reputation and Local Officeholding in Elizabethan andStuart England', in Order and Disorder in Early Modem England, ed. Anthony Fletcherand John Stevenson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). (See especiallySharpe, Smuts, and Marcus on courtly address in addition to sources cited above.)Patronage has proven a critical issue among revisionst and what may be called post-revisionist historians. These sources, combined with the works on courtly poetry mentionedabove, represent a variety of different views. Compare the frameworks in approachingpatronage in Conrad Russell, Parliaments and English Politics 1621-1629 (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1979) and Lawrence Stone, The Crisis in the Aristocracy 1558-1641(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). Within Hobbes scholarship, the classic piece associatingthe philosopher with reformist sentiments among the aristocracy concerned with thecompetition over honors is Keith Thomas, 'The Social Origins of Hobbes's PoliticalThought', in Hobbes Studies, ed. K. C. Brown (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), pp.185-236. Cf. Perez Zagorin, 'Clarendon and Hobbes', Journal of Modern History 57(1985), pp. 593-616. See also Neal Wood, 'Thomas Hobbes and the Crisis of the EnglishAristocracy', History of Political Thought 1 (1980) 3, pp. 437-52.

38 Cust, op. cit, pp. 197-8. Geoffrey Trease, Portrait of a Cavalier, William Cavendish, FirstDuke of Newcastle (London: Macmillan, 1979).

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39 Johann Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context (New York: StMartin's, 1992), p. 9. On the forced loan generally see Cust, op. cit

40 In fact, Hobbes did not complete the Elements until four days after Parliament had alreadybeen dismissed. Nevertheless, according to Hobbes, drafts, were circulating before thedissolution of the Parliament.

41 Somerville, op. cit, Richard Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572-1651 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 313-14.

42 Behemoth or the Long Parliament, ed. Ferdinand Tönnies (Chicago: University of Chicago,1990), p. 33. Cf. pp. 114-15.

43 On Waller, see Noel Malcolm (ed.), The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 913-14. Waller's loyalties, not unlike Davenant's, wereflexible in a way that Hobbes could approve. He had been among the first spokesman forthe grievances of the Commons, but turned in opposition away from its more extremeproposals - such as the abolition of episcopacy. As the war began, he was on the King'sside, and in May 1643 he and his brother-in-law (Nathaniel Tomkins) were involved in abotched plot to take London for the King. Unlike his brother in law, Waller saved himself,eloquently pleading his own case; he was imprisoned in the Tower, and released into exilein November of 1644. Hobbes reports in this letter that he had been attending to theeducation of Waller's son Robert and a nephew (Malcolm speculates Tomkins' son).Waller's reputation for eloquence was well known, and he remained a constant (if notalways public) admirer of Hobbes. In this letter, Hobbes expresses his delight at the thoughtthat Waller had at one time considered the possibility of translating De Cive.

44 Malcolm, op. cit., p. 124 (Letter 39).45 John Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. Andrew Clarke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), vol. I, p.

340.46 Trease, op. cit, pp. 54-55.47 Considerations touching the facility or Difficulty of the Motions of a Horse on streight lines,

& Circular, printed in A Catalogue of Letters and Other Historical Documents Exhibited inthe Library at Welbeck, ed. Arthur Strong (London: John Murray, 1903), pp. 237-40. Theeditor attributes the work to Hobbes. Noel Malcolm has identified the handwriting of thepiece as Robert Payne's Newcastle's chaplain, who also pursued mathematical issues, andpins him as the likely author. The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes, ed. Noel Malcolm(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 813-14, 872-7. Skinner seconds Malcolm (p.251 n).

48 For a recent review of mathematical professions during the Renaissance in Italy, see MarioBiagioli, 'The Social Status of Italian Mathematicians 1450-1600', History of Science 27(1989), pp. 41-95. Galileo had taught at an Italian military academy.

49 See esp. Elements, bk. 2, ch. 8, sects 13-15.50 'For myself, I desire no greater honour than I enjoy already in your Lordship's known

favour, unless it be that you would be pleased, in continuance thereof, to give me moreexercise in your commands; which, as I am bound by your many great favours, I shall obey. . .' Ibid. Epistle Dedicatory.

51 It is noteworthy that Skinner nowhere cites Kenneth Burke, who, in A Rhetoric of Motives,describes a variety of rhetorical techniques that could be mapped closely onto Hobbes.

52 See Somerville, op. cit, pp. xii-xiii, 17-19, and 172 n 42 for the chronology.53 Pt. I, ch. 17, sect 15.54 Pt I, ch. 19, sects 3, 4.55 'Thomas Hobbes and his Disciples in France and England', Comparative Studies in Society

and History 8 (1965), pp. 153-67; 'The Ideological Context of Hobbes's PoliticalThought', Historical Journal 9 (1966), pp. 217-39; 'Conquest and Consent: ThomasHobbes and the Engagement Controversy' in The Interregnum: The Quest for Settlement,ed. G. E. Aylmer (London: Macmillan, 1974), pp. 79-98.

56 This ambition was made clear in the Elements, pt 2, ch. 9, sect 8.57 Of course, in the Dedicatory to William Cavendish he has a different audience. It is worth

noting the deferential tone that Hobbes assumes in this rhetorical situation. Hobbes wasonce the Second Earl of Devonshire's tutor, but now his secretary and more properly hisservant Hobbes invites his patron to censure his errors. De Cive (English ed.) pp. 27-8.

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58 Cf. Lev., 25, 9 on the gentler ways of giving commands.59 De Cive, 10, 9.60 Skinner makes note of the special non-demonstrative status of chapter ten (cf. p. 261), yet

can only see this as evidence that the philosopher was on the warpath against prudence.Since passages such as the one quoted above work in a way complimentary to the lessonshe claims to demonstrate, it suggests that Skinner is mistaken. It is difficult to see why weshould not conclude that Hobbes was willing to forge the alliance between reason andrhetoric (when addressing the appropriate audiences) sooner than Skinner would allow.

61 See the Epistle and Prologue to Volpone, ed. Alvin Kernin (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1962), pp. 27-37.

62 Skinner's analysis of laughter's connection with scorn aptly illustrates a key part of thisdynamic (pp. 198-204). Much of what Skinner reviews could very well support anargument Unking laughter with satiric moral correction (cf. the brief remark on Burton [p.204]). Skinner's own analysis, however, very quickly heads in the direction of showing itsapplications as a 'lethal weapon of debate', a way of pouring derision on particularopponents.

63 Ben Jonson, Discoveries, 2850-906. He writes within this section: 'The person offendedhath no reason to be offended with the writer, but with himself; and so declare that propertyto belong to him, which was so spoken of all men, as it could be no man's several, but histhat would willfully claim it.'

64 Bishop Hall was a moderate Puritan, unyielding in his persecution of vices, exhorting tovirtues, but a supporter of the episcopacy. For Hall's fame and influence as a satirist, seeRichard McCabe, Joseph Hall: A Study in Satire and Meditation (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1982) and Benjamin Boyce, The Theophrastian Character in England to 1642 (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), pp. 53-135. See also Peter Lake, Moderate Puritansand the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) for more onHall's politics. As regards the Theophrastian influence, as McCabe points out, it was notsimply Theophrastus, but Theophrastus misinterpreted by his recent translator Casaubon(pp. 110-31), and, as Boyce indicates, Hall carries over much from medieval and Christiantraditions of exhortation and homiletic literature (op. cit.).

65 Joseph Hall, Heaven upon Earth and Characters of Vertues and Vices, ed. Rudolf Kirk(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1948), p. 175. The characters were first enteredon the stationer's register in March 1607-8.

66 Ibid., p. 144, on the need to show vice (and virtue) in their nakedness, see p. 146. Ourquotation leaves out Hall's remarks on the usefulness of his Characters of Virtue.

67 McCabe, op. cit. p. 112.68 See Boyce, op. cit., on the flexibility of the form. Some writers of charactery, moreover,

described specific social settings. John Earl (a member of the Great Tew) included in hiscollection of characters, Microcosmography, descriptions of a tavern and the walk at StPaul's Cathedral. John Earl, Microcosmography or a Piece of the World Discovered inEssays and Characters, ed. Harold Osborne (St Claire Shores, Michigan: Scholarly Press,1978 [1933]).

69 De Cive, 1, 2.70 Times Literary Supplement, 16 August 1996.71 McCabe, op. cit.72 Notably Hall is presented as just another piece in the humanist project to build the vir civilis

(pp. 79-81).73 It must be noted that there are moments when Hobbes seems to lament all archaic learning,

Greek and Latin; see Lev. 21, 9. Note, however, that the sources derided are the old,corrupting, standards - Aristotle and Cicero. Specifically, they corrupt because they teachthat monarchy is tyranny. It is not difficult to see how Hobbes could offer a translation of(in his view, anti-democratic) Thucydides and still hold to these opinions. An importantfigure in Renaissance Greek education that Skinner does make light of is Lucian. Skinnermakes light of Hobbes's use of Lucian in the 'Life and History of Thucydides' (p. 249).Most of his references, however, concern Hobbes's appropriation of Lucian's account ofHercules (pp. 92, 93, 389, 390). In Lucian's version, Hercules plays the god of eloquence,and is depicted with his tongue pierced with delicate gold chains that attach to the ears of

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his followers. (The dust jacket of the 1996 edition uses Laurentius Haechtanus'sillustration, 1579.) Hobbes finds use for this imagery, but it is worth noting some of thedifferences between Lucian's account and Hobbes's. In Lev. 21, 5 Hobbes's citizens attachthe golden threads to Hercules' tongue; they bind themselves. Lucian uses this Herculesstory as the centerpiece of one of bis brief introductory pieces. These works were used tocommend the speaker to his audience. In it, he indicates that he fears the young willdiscount him for his age, and so uses the story to illustrate that old men (Hercules is alsoquite grizzled in this account) may still have the moving force of rhetoric at their disposal.Thus, Hobbes's account emphasizes the voluntary ties of contract, with fear of sovereignreprisal in the background; Lucian's account illustrates the power of eloquence to commandattention and to move its audience. For Lucian, rhetoric becomes a substitute for thepotency of youth's physical strength. For Hobbes, the potent force of the sovereign suppliesthe followers with their motive for not breaking the delicate chains they have strungbetween his tongue and their ears. ('Heracles' in Lucian, ed. and trans. A. M. Harmon[1913], vol. 1, pp. 61-70.) See also Patricia Springborg, 'Hobbes's Biblical Beasts -Leviathan and Behemoth', Political Theory 23 (1995), 2, pp. 353-75. The connectionbetween Hobbes and Lucian (a favorite among Erasmus and More, who translated hiswork) will benefit from further exploration. A number of points of contact suggestthemselves: these include the indignity of clientelage, the. satiric exposure of shamphilosophers, orators, and prophets, and the failure of audiences to maintain theirdetachment when faced with moving performances. Here, again, there is a link to Jonson.See Douglas Duncan, Ben Jonson and the Lucianic Tradition (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1979).

74 See pp. 25-26.75 See George Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from

Ancient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), pp.215-26 on the legacy of Bacon's complaint against Ciceronian style (Skinner, pp. 271-4).

76 Lev. 18, 5. Tuck (1993), 325 argues that Hobbes's initial intention was to dedicateLeviathan to the king, before bis favour at the exiled court was destroyed by opponents.

77 Lev. Review and Conclusion, 16.78 Ibid. In chapter 30, 'Of the OFFICE of the Sovereign Representative', Hobbes makes it

clear that he believes the responsibility of 'appointing teachers and examining whatdoctrines are conformable or contrary to the defense, peace, and good of the people' (sect.3) is one of the sovereign's responsibilities. Again, in section 6, we learn that it is thesovereign's duty, but also to, 'his benefit . . . and security against the danger that may arriveto himself in his natural person from rebellion'. Moreover, in presenting the doctrine thatthe sovereign is responsible for inculcating, he speaks in the sections that follow of what thepeople are to be 'taught'. Moreover (sect. 10), this teaching is taking place amongst thepeople on the Sabbath, by persons appointed to instruct them (i.e. university trained divines,see sect 14 on the uses of the Universities).

79 This choice - to judge the doctrine on the doctrine's own terms, or to assess it according tothe norms that rule courtly reasoning - captures the basic dynamics faced by Hobbes. It alsosupplies a plausible alternative to Skinner's 'volte face' reading. It nevertheless entailssome simplification, made necessary by limited scope of this piece. In surveying theopposite poles, it must pass over the interesting middle ground. Here Hobbes attempts notonly to meet the terms of his patrons, but also to use his skills, rhetorical and rational, togently instruct his courtly audience to modify their criteria. Entering mis analysis, however,would require a much longer look at why Hobbes, his patrons, and many humanists foundmathematics so attractive, it would also require an analysis of the intracacies of offeringcounsel to the sovereign. Ted Miller's dissertation, however, lays out a fuller defense of thisentire reading, and discusses the ramification of the humanist draw to mathematics forinterpretations (including Skinner's) that assume the embrace of mathematics entails arejection of humanism.

80 This conclusion is particularly hard to square with the anti-rhetorical/anti-democraticcomments in Behemoth. Indeed, unless one gives up the notion that Hobbes lets down hisguard in a general way against the use of rhetoric in matters of civic and ethical philosophy,the Behemoth seems in conflict with the new leniency Skinner finds. On the one hand, those

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who use rhetoric (notably the Presbyterians, but also the Schools) are sharply attacked forgulling the multitudes. On the other hand, the text itself is a dialogue and a history. Whywould a philosopher now reconciled with his own use of rhetoric feel so sure footed inattacking the rhetoric of his opponents? If, however, we attribute to Hobbes anunderstanding of these matters which does not simply ask about philosophy and rhetoricin the abstract, but about whose rhetoric, to which audience, and for what purposes, theBehemoth seems to stand more securely in its use of eloquence. Rhetoric before the masses,particularly that which tends to sedition, is always decried. Rhetoric before an elevatedaudience is fitting and proper (Behemoth was first presented to the King, although he deniedHobbes permission to publish).

81 The question of its status once it had become the text of and for the commonwealth isanother matter. On this, see Tracy B. Strong, 'How to Write Scripture . . .' op. cit

82 See pp. 5-6. John Nelson, Allan Megill, and Donald McCloskey (eds), The Rhetoric of theHuman Sciences (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). Skinner refers hisreaders to Peter Munz, 'The Rhetoric of Rhetoric', Journal of the History of Ideas 51(1990), pp. 121-42. We find Munz's essay (a criticism of Nelson et al., and Brian Vickers'sDefense of Rhetoric) shrill. The persuasive responses by Donald McCloskey and Vickers(ibid., pp. 143-7, 148-59) illustrate a wide variety of weaknesses in Munz's piece; it issurprising that they go uncited by Skinner. Skinner is giving approval to an author wholinks the authors of The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences with Nazism (Munz, op. cit., p.133), and who writes, 'it has been powerfully argued that the reason why more primitivecultures do not share our standards of rationality and objectivity had nothing to do withtheir primitive minds but with the fact that they have been insufficiently exposed to debate'.Change 'debate' to 'geometry', and 'primitive cultures' with the savages in America andmight Hobbes voice his assent? However, one must ask if the same author who couldjustify contextualism on its anthropological value finds himself in step with this, or with thefacile history that sustains this screed against today's supposedly awful relativism.Skinner's approval of Munz is all the more surprising given his description of theanthropological value of his own project: 'The investigation of alien systems of beliefprovides us with an irreplaceable means of standing back from our own prevailingassumptions and structures of thought, and of situating ourselves in relation to other andvery different forms of life' (Meaning and Context, op. cit., p. 286). This makes a fine pointfor contextualism, once it realizes the need not to play the ultimate arbiter of other methodsof interpretation - this alone will recommend it to many.

.83 See Mary Hesse, 'Habermas and the Force of Dialectical Argument', History of EuropeanIdeas 21 (1995), 3, pp. 367-78. Tracy B. Strong and Frank Sposito, 'Habermas' SignificantOther', in Stephen K. White (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Habermas (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1994).

84 MC, p. 281. We are, inevitably, reminded of the passage in the PhilosophicalInvestigations, where Wittgenstein asks why a dog cannot fake pain.

85 Jacques Derrida, 'Signature Event Context', in his Margins of Philosophy (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1982).

86 Ibid., p. 326. We are helped here directly by Cavell (1994).

Received 29 April 1997

Ted Miller/Tracy B. Strong, Department of Political Science, University of California, SanDiego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0521, USAD

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