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REVIEW ARTICLE:LINGUISTIC CONTEXTUALISM ANDMEDIEVAL POLITICAL THOUGHT:

QUENTIN SKINNER ON MARSILIUS OF PADUA

Vasileios Syros1,2

Abstract: This article discusses hitherto unexplored aspects of Quentin Skinner’swork on the history of political thought by offering a critical appraisal of the medievalsection of Skinner’s Foundations of Modern Political Thought. The article investi-gates and critically assesses Skinner’s study of the medieval ‘classics’ with a specificfocus on his interpretation of the fourteenth-century political thinker Marsilius ofPadua. In particular, the paper demonstrates that Skinner’s analysis of Marsilius’political ideas is at odds with his own methodology. It also contends that Skinner’semphasis on the intellectual-linguistic context as a starting point for the interpretationof major political writers of the past downplays the normative value of Marsilius’political theory and is, in the end, a narrow interpretation of the overall scopeof Marsilius’ Defensor pacis.

One of the largely unstudied aspects of Quentin Skinner’s work on the history

of political thought is the medieval part of his Foundations of Modern Politi-

cal Thought.3 The failure of scholarship on Skinner’s methodology to offer a

critical appraisal of the medieval ‘foundations’ of Skinner’s Foundations,

that is, Skinner’s application of his methodology in his study of medieval

political thought, can be attributed to a number of reasons. The bulk of

scholarship on Skinner’s work on methodology, and especially the papers

collected in the Meaning and Context4 and Rethinking the Foundations of

Modern Political Thought5 volumes do not look at Skinner’s application of

his own methodological precepts in his interpretation of certain ‘classic’

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

1 The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, The University ofChicago, 1025 E. 58th St., Swift Hall, Chicago, IL 60637–1509, USA. Email: [email protected]

2 I would like to thank Bernardo Bayona Aznar, Janet Coleman, Jeong-soo Kim,Evan Kuehn, Cary Nederman, Kari Palonen, Paul Rahe and Gary Shaw for valuable sug-gestions and criticisms. Thanks are also due to Nathan Tarcov for earlier discussions andfor sharing his unpublished manuscript, ‘Quentin Skinner’s Method, Machiavelli andThomas More’, with me.

3 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 1: The Renaissance(Cambridge, 1978).

4 Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed. J. Tully (Princeton, NJ,1988).

5 Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, ed. Annabel Brett andJames Tully (Cambridge and New York, 2006).

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic 2010For personal use only -- not for reproduction

thinkers and texts.6 In addition, no attempt has been made so far to examine

how Skinner’s methodological programme relates to his study of major fig-

ures in the history of medieval Western political thought. As a result, there

remains a genuine need to explore the potential and limits of Skinner’s

methodology with regard to the study of medieval political ideas.

Though the largest part of Skinner’s work is focused on modern political

thought, he clearly intended the medieval and Renaissance section of his

Foundations as a propaedeutic to his survey of modern political thought. The

objective of this article is to explore Skinner’s study of medieval ‘classics’

with a specific focus on his interpretation of the late-medieval political thinker

Marsilius of Padua (1270/1290–1342). I do not purport to offer a detailed

study of the medieval component of Skinner’s Foundations; instead, I use

Skinner’s discussion of Marsilius to evaluate Skinner’s methodological

programme. I will demonstrate that Skinner’s study of Marsilius’ ideas con-

tradicts his own methodology. I will also suggest that Skinner’s emphasis on

the intellectual-linguistic context as a starting point for the interpretation of

classic political thinkers downplays the prescriptive dimensions of Marsilius’

political theory.

Anachronisms

In his discussion of the ‘appropriate procedures’ to follow in approaching

and understanding ‘classic’ texts,7 Skinner challenges the idea that ‘the text

itself should form the self-sufficient object of inquiry and understanding’. He

quotes William Bluhm, who claims that the goal must be to provide ‘a re-

appraisal of the classic writings, quite apart from the context of historical

development, as perennially important attempts to set down universal propo-

sitions about political reality’.8 The historian’s or interpreter’s tantalizing

dilemma of whether he ‘should concentrate simply on the text in itself’

amounts essentially to saying that ‘it will never in fact be possible simply to

study what any given classic writer has said (especially in an alien culture)

692 V. SYROS

6 Notable exceptions are P.A. Rahe, ‘Situating Machiavelli’, in Renaissance CivicHumanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. J. Hankins (Cambridge, 2000), pp.270–308; N. Tarcov, ‘Quentin Skinner’s Method and Machiavelli’s Prince’, Ethics, 92(1982), pp. 692–709, excerpted in Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, pp. 194–203;N. Tarcov, ‘Political Thought in Early Modern Europe II: The Age of Reformation’,Journal of Modern History, 54 (1982), pp. 56–65. For an intellectual portrait of QuentinSkinner, see K. Palonen, Quentin Skinner: History, Politics, Rhetoric (Cambridge,2003).

7 Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, p. 30.8 Ibid.; William T. Bluhm, Theories of the Political System: Classics of Political

Thought & Modern Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1965), p. v.


REVIEW ARTICLE 693

without bringing to bear some of one’s expectations about what he must have

been saying’.9

Skinner rightly calls attention to the hazards linked to projecting a particu-

lar idea or doctrine onto a thinker of the past. For instance, he cautions against

ascribing to Marsilius a doctrine of ‘separation of powers’ and against assum-

ing that ‘he could have meant to contribute to a debate the terms of which

were unavailable to him, and the point of which would have been lost on

him’.10 However, Skinner seems to elide the difference between the concept

of separation of powers as formulated by Montesquieu and other modern

political thinkers and the notion that portions of authority can be assigned to

various organs and agents within a political entity.11

Marsilius in his Defensor pacis (Defender of Peace, 1324)12 looks upon the

legislator humanus, i.e. the entire body of the citizens or their valentior pars

(weightier part) as the fountain and ultimate repository of political power

within the political community.13 He thereby advocates the supreme and undi-

vided sovereignty of the legislator humanus over the process of framing the

laws and appointing, monitoring and correcting the ruler/government and the

officeholders.14 Though he does not subscribe to the modern concept of ‘sepa-

ration of powers’, he does entertain the notion that power can be divided

among parts and organs when it comes to the administration of a political

entity, without compromising the absolute authority (or sovereignty) of the

legislator humanus. Marsilius scholarship is divided on this issue: for Cary

Nederman, any kind of representative system and the idea of entrusting of

power to a representative body are at odds with Marsilius’ idea of citizen-

ship.15 In Hwa-Yong Lee’s reading, in contrast, Marsilius acknowledges that

the body of the citizens can delegate authority to representatives without

9 Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, p. 31.10 Ibid., p. 33.11 See also B. Bayona Aznar, Religión y poder: Marsilio de Padua: ¿La primera

teoría laica del poder? (Madrid, 2007), pp. 171–2.12 References to the Defensor pacis are to the edition Marsilius von Padua, Defensor

pacis, ed. Richard Scholz (= Fontes iuris germanici antiqui in usum scholarum exmonumentis germanicae historicis, separatim editi; 7) (Hanover, 1932/33) (henceforthcited as Defensor pacis). Citations will be to discourse, chapter and paragraph. I havealso consulted the following English translations: Marsilius of Padua, The Defender ofPeace, Vol. 2: The Defensor pacis, trans. A. Gewirth (New York 1956; repr. 2001);Marsilius of Padua, The Defender of the Peace, ed. and trans. A. Brett (Cambridge 2005).

13 Defensor pacis I.xii.14 Ibid., I.xv.15 C.J. Nederman, ‘Knowledge, Consent and the Critique of Political Representation

in Marsiglio of Padua’s Defensor Pacis’, Political Studies, 39 (1991), pp. 19–35; C.J.Nederman, ‘The Theory of Political Representation: Medieval Repræsentatio andModern Transformations’, in Repræsentatio: Mapping a Key Word for Churches andGovernance, ed. Alberto Melloni and M. Faggioli (Münster, 2006), pp. 41–59, esp.pp. 48–51.


necessarily relinquishing their fundamental civil and political rights. In this

sense, Lee argues, Marsilius articulates an ‘instrumental’ notion of political

representation as indispensable for appointing the organs entrusted with the

enforcement of the laws and the establishment and coordination of the other

parts of the political community.16 Likewise, Bernardo Bayona Aznar sug-

gests that the Marsilian scheme of governmental organization is founded on

the principle that the power of the legislator humanus is ‘perpetual’ and ‘ir-

revocable’ and that the legislator humanus can assign authority to one or sev-

eral persons, but remains the ultimate source and holder of authority within

the political community.17

Marsilius proposes a general model of political organization as the com-

mon feature of all legitimate constitutional forms (kingship, aristocracy and

polity). This model is meant to apply to various political entities, and Marsilius

does not indicate a preference for one specific form of government. Just once

in the Defensor pacis does Marsilius suggest that kingship is ‘perhaps’ the

best form of government.18 He is adamant that the only legitimate lawgiver,

the ‘primary and proper efficient cause’ of the laws, is the whole body of the

citizens (universitas civium) or its ‘weightier part’ (pars valentior), regardless

of whether it makes the laws directly by itself or it assigns the task of making

the laws to a person or persons who are not and cannot be the legislator in the

absolute sense (simpliciter), but only in a certain aspect (ad aliquid) and for a

specific period and in accordance with the authority of the primary legisla-

tor.19 When it comes to the actual workings of governance and the lawmaking

process, Marsilius envisages a representative scheme that involves vesting

the organs and officeholders of the political community with a certain amount

694 V. SYROS

16 H.-Y. Lee, Political Representation in the Later Middle Ages: Marsilius in Con-text (New York, 2008), pp. 131–2.

17 Bayona, Religión y poder, p. 191. See also J. Coleman ‘Marsilius of Padua’, ch. 4,pp.134–68, in A History of Political Thought, Vol. 2: From the Middle Ages to theRenaissance (Oxford and Malden, MA, 2000), pp. 153–8.

18 Defensor pacis I.ix.5.19 ‘Nos autem dicamus secundum veritatem atque consilium Aristotelis 30 Politice,

capitulo 60, legislatorem seu causam legis effectivam primam et propriam esse populumseu civium universitatem aut eius valenciorem partem, per suam eleccionem seuvoluntatem in generali civium congregacione per sermonem expressam precipientemseu determinantem aliquid fieri vel omitti circa civiles actus humanos sub pena velsupplicio temporali: valenciorem inquam partem, considerata quantitate personarum etqualitate in communitate illa super quam lex fertur, sive id fecerit universitas predictacivium aut eius pars valencior per seipsam immediate, sive id alicui vel aliquibuscommiserit faciendum, qui legislator simpliciter non sunt nec esse possunt, sed solum adaliquid et quandoque, ac secundum primi legislatoris auctoritatem.’ (Defensor pacisI.xii.3).


REVIEW ARTICLE 695

of power or coercive force that is necessary for them to perform their duties.20

As Marsilius phrases it, the legislator humanus is the primary and proper effi-

cient cause (prima et appropriata causa effectiva) and the ruler functions as

the secondary or executive efficient cause (secundaria vero quasi

instrumentalis seu executiva causa effectiva) and exercises the authority

given to him in conformity with the laws.21

Although Marsilius’ political theory does not involve an irrevocable trans-

fer of power to the ruler or the governing part (pars principans), it does pro-

pose a pattern of political organization in which the government is vested with

a certain amount of power to set up the other parts of the political community

and enforce the laws.22

In Skinner’s account,

the particular danger with intellectual biography is that of sheer anachro-nism. A given writer may be ‘discovered’ to have held a view, on thestrength of some chance similarity of terminology, on some subject towhich he cannot in principle have meant to contribute. Marsilius of Padua,for example, at one point in his Defender of the Peace offers some typicallyAristotelian remarks on the executive role of the ruler, compared with thelegislative role of a sovereign people. The modern commentator who comesupon this passage will of course be familiar with the doctrine, important inconstitutional theory and practice since the American Revolution, that oneof the conditions of political freedom is the separation of executive fromlegislative power. The historical origins of the doctrine itself can be tracedto the historiographical suggestion (first canvassed some two centuriesafter Marsilius’ death) that the development of the Roman Republic into anEmpire demonstrated the danger to the liberty of subjects inherent inentrusting any single authority with centralized political power.23

Skinner holds that the historian of political thought can easily fall prey to the

‘tendency for the paradigms applied to the history of ideas to cause its subject

matter to mutate into a mythology of doctrines’.24 He elaborates: ‘the charac-

teristic point of departure in such histories is to set out an ideal type of the

given doctrine — whether it is the doctrine of equality, progress, Machia-

vellism, the social contract, the great chain of being, the separation of powers

and so on’.25 ‘The reification of doctrines in this way gives rise in turn to two

kinds of historical absurdity, both of which are not merely prevalent in this

type of history, but seem more or less inescapable when its methodology is

20 For a similar point, see D.R. Carr, ‘The Prince and the City: Ideology and Realityin the Thought of Marsilius of Padua’, Medioevo, 5 (1979), pp. 279–91, p. 285.

21 Defensor pacis I.xiv.8; xv.4.22 Ibid., I.xv.23 Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, pp. 32–3.24 Ibid., p. 34.25 Ibid.


employed.’26 In this connection, Skinner then denounces ‘the tendency to

search for approximations to the ideal type’, which ‘yields a form of non-

history which is almost entirely given over to pointing out earlier ‘anticipa-

tions’ of later doctrines, and to crediting each writer in terms of clairvoyance.

So Marsilius is notable for his ‘remarkable anticipation’ of Machiavelli;

Machiavelli is notable because he ‘lays the foundation for Marx’.27

Nonetheless, certain questions and ideas are, in fact, universal, that is, they

are common to humans regardless of geographical location or chronological

differences. These questions and ideas emerge as central themes in various

traditions of political theorizing. Accordingly, one of the primary tasks of the

historian of political thought is to chart the genesis and evolution of a particu-

lar idea or concept and its cross-pollination and vicissitudes across different

contexts. The idea of the birth of the state on a contractual basis, for instance,

is essentially as old as the history of political thought itself: it has been a per-

sistent feature of ancient Chinese, Indian and classical political thought and

has often been deployed as a device to explain the rise and growth of human

civilization or to illustrate the raison d’être of political authority. Tracing the

trajectories of this idea across various traditions of political theorizing does

not amount to understating the novelty of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau as

progenitors of modern social contract theories, nor does it devalue their con-

tribution to the formation of the notion of social contract as a response to spe-

cific questions and events of their time. However, it can help to dispel a

certain mythology that has sprung up whereby certain concepts have been

reckoned as distinctly ‘modern’ or ‘Western’/‘European’.

The Mahabharata and Kautilya’s (Indian statesman and philosopher, fourth

century BC) Arthasastra, for example, speak of a primordial condition that

was characterized by anarchy in which the large fish devoured the smaller

one. At some stage, people decided to appoint Manu as their ruler to protect

them and uphold social order.28 Likewise, in the narrative Elevating Uniform-

ity (or Conforming Upwards, Shang tong) Mo Zi (Chinese philosopher,

c.460–390 BC) sketches the stages through which the state came into being in

terms very similar to those employed in early modern contractarian concep-

tions of the state: at the beginning there were neither punishments nor govern-

ment, and each man had a different standard of right and wrong. The diversity

of standards generated friction and conflict. At some point, the most virtuous

and most able among them was chosen and anointed as the Son of Heaven.

696 V. SYROS

26 Ibid., p. 35.27 Ibid.28 See the discussions in S. Collins, ‘The Lion’s Roar on the Wheel-Turning King: A

Response to Andrew Huxley’s “The Buddha and the Social Contract” ’, Journal ofIndian Philosophy, 24 (1996), pp. 421–46; L.R. Smith, ‘The Social Contract in Kautilya’sArthasastra and the Mauryan Empire of Ancient India’, Indian Journal of Economics &Business, 4 (2005), pp. 325–44; M. Sicker, The Genesis of the State (New York, 1991),pp. 26–8, 80.


REVIEW ARTICLE 697

The Son of Heaven chose and appointed the most virtuous and most able men

as the Three Dukes. However, Son of Heaven and the Three Dukes realized

that the world is huge and divided it into several states and designated leaders

and rulers for each region and state.29

The aforementioned instances might seem of little relevance to the evolu-

tion of the European tradition of social contract. But early modern social con-

tract theorists participated in a discourse in which ideas such as ‘social pact’,

‘state of nature’ and ‘pact of subjects’ had been prefigured and constituted

common currency already in the Middle Ages. The historian of political

thought can set himself the task of illuminating the classical or medieval sub-

stratum of ideas while being mindful of the danger ‘that the doctrine to be

investigated so readily becomes hypostatized into an entity’.30 In the Republic

(358e–359b), for example, Glaucon puts forth the view that justice originates

from a pact among members of the political community: when men had per-

petrated and suffered from injustice, they deemed it expedient to enter into a

mutual agreement that would prevent both. Hence, they agreed to lay down

laws and concluded covenants.31

Along similar lines, Cicero in various of his writings formulates a theory of

the rise and evolution of the commonwealth on a contractual basis that had an

enduring impact on medieval debates on the genesis of social life and the

justification of rulership: the idea that a commonwealth (res publica) is the

property of the people (populus) but that a people is not any conglomeration

of individuals joined together in any manner but a multitude of men united by

an agreement on justice and a share in the common utility. Drawing on Cicero,

a number of medieval political writers such as John Duns Scotus (c.1265–

1308), John of Paris (Quidort) (c.1255–1306) and Engelbert of Admont

(c.1250–1332), posit that men lived scattered in a pre-social condition, but

they had various wants and thus needed to associate with others in order to

sustain themselves and secure a sufficient life; they subsequently formed

communities based on agreement as to what is just and in the community

29 Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, trans. B. Watson (NewYork and London, 1967), pp. 34–5; Y. Pines, Envisioning Eternal Empire: ChinesePolitical Thought of the Warring States Era (Honolulu, 2009), pp. 31–2; Y. Pines and G.Shelach, ‘Using the Past to Serve the Present: Comparative Perspectives on Chinese andWestern Theories of the Origins of the State’, in Genesis and Regeneration: Essays onConceptions of Origins, ed. S. Shaked (Jerusalem, 2005), pp. 127–63 (on Mo Zi pp.131–3); A. Black, A World History of Ancient Political Thought (Oxford, 2009), pp.108–10. For comparisons with Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, see C. Liang, History ofChinese Political Thought during the Early Tsin Period, trans. L.T. Chen (New York andLondon, 1930), pp. 106–7.

30 Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, p. 34.31 See in general C.H. Kahn, ‘The Origins of Social Contract Theory in the Fifth

Century B.C.’, in The Sophists and Their Legacy, ed. G.B. Kerferd (Wiesbaden, 1981),pp. 92–108.


interest; but internecine strife and dissension soon broke out; therefore men

decided to appoint a ruler to protect themselves from those driven by greed

and to safeguard domestic unity and stability.32

These classical and medieval accounts of the creation and growth of human

communities exhibit intriguing affinities to early modern theories of social

contract, as developed by Hobbes and Locke, which depict a ‘state of nature’,

a condition characterized by the absence of any type of social organization,

which was then followed by the creation of a human community on the basis

of a ‘social contract’. The second stage was initiated by a pact of government:

a voluntary agreement to establish a constitution or conclude a pact with a

sovereign or to exchange oaths that detailed the specific terms whereby the

people were expected to obey and the ruler ought to operate.

‘Classics’ and the Classics

It is baffling that, notwithstanding his strictures against anachronism, Skinner

often contradicts himself and ends up falling into serious anachronisms: for

example, in his Foundations he contends that Marsilius’ arguments ‘culmi-

nate, to speak anachronistically, in a remarkably “Lutheran” vision of the

powers and jurisdictions which Marsiglio thinks it legitimate to claim on

behalf of the clergy and the Church’.33 Even though, as noted before, Skinner

cautions against crediting Marsilius with a theory of separation of powers, he

still employs the concept of popular sovereignty, a concept introduced by

Jean Bodin in the sixteenth century that is equally or even more problematic

than the ‘separation of powers’ idea. As Skinner phrases it,

the theory of popular sovereignty developed by Marsilius and Bartolus [ofSaxoferrato (1313–57)] was destined to play a major role in shaping the

698 V. SYROS

32 For further discussion and references, see V. Syros, ‘Founders and Kings versusOrators: Medieval and Early Modern Views on the Origins of Social Life’, Viator, 42 (1)(2011) (forthcoming); M. Kempshall, ‘De Re Publica I.39 in Medieval and RenaissancePolitical Thought’, in Cicero’s Republic, ed. J.G.F. Powell and J.A. North (London 2001),pp. 99–135. On Cicero’s reception in medieval political writing, see C.J. Nederman,‘The Union of Wisdom and Eloquence Before the Renaissance: The Ciceronian Oratorin Medieval Political Thought’, The Journal of Medieval History, 18 (1992), pp. 75–95;C.J. Nederman, ‘Nature, Sin and the Origins of Society: The Ciceronian Tradition inMedieval Political Thought’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 49 (1988), pp. 3–26; bothreprinted in C.J. Nederman, Medieval Aristotelianism and its Limits: Classical Tradi-tions in Moral and Political Philosophy, 12th–15th Centuries (London, 1997), nos. XIIand XI, respectively.

33 Skinner, Foundations, p. 19. For a closer discussion of the affinities betweenMarsilius and Luther, see J. Heckel, ‘Marsilius von Padua und Martin Luther: EinVergleich ihrer Rechts- und Soziallehre’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechts-geschichte, Kanonische Abteilung, 44 (1958), pp. 268–336 — reprinted in J. Heckel,Das blinde, undeutliche Wort ‘Kirche’: Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. S. Grundmann(Cologne and Graz, 1964), pp. 49–110.


REVIEW ARTICLE 699

most radical version of early modern constitutionalism. Already they areprepared to argue that sovereignty lies with the people, that they only dele-gate and never alienate it, and thus no legitimate ruler can ever enjoy ahigher status than that of an official appointed by, and capable of being dis-missed by, his own subjects.34

Skinner’s application of the popular sovereignty concept is problematic for

a number of reasons: Marsilius is concerned not so much with the ‘status’ of

the ruler (in the case of monarchy) or rulers (in the case of aristocracy and pol-

ity), as Skinner believes, but rather with the mechanics of power and the crea-

tion of an efficient system for monitoring the activity of the officeholders,

including the ruler(s). In essence, even if the ruler is assigned a status lower

than that of an official appointed by, and capable of being dismissed by, his

own subjects, he still can accumulate power and act against the will of the

people or the existing laws.

Even more striking is the fact that, although Skinner looks upon the politi-

cal lexicon and language of a writer as the ‘embodiment of a particular inten-

tion, on a particular occasion, addressed to the solution of a particular

problem’,35 he in effect obfuscates the conceptual terms available to Marsilius

precisely because he does not trouble to explore the ways in which a medieval

‘classic’ (Marsilius) read an ancient ‘classic’ (Aristotle). This is certainly not

to overlook or deny that the student or translator of political texts is compelled

to cater to the needs of the particular audience he seeks to address while trying

to be true to the genuine content of the work. Likewise, the student of the

‘classics’ perforce needs to strike a balance and to choose from a panoply of

terms and concepts available in modern parlance when constructing a narra-

tive and engaging in an analysis of a particular work. Inevitably, there is

always a gulf between the genuine content of a text and its translation or inter-

pretation, given that a translator or an interpreter must operate in terms that

are available to him/her but not the author of the original text, no matter how

hard she tries to avoid the fallacy of ‘supposing that he [Marsilius] could have

meant to contribute to a debate the terms of which were unavailable to him’.36

By labelling Marsilius an apologist for the idea of ‘popular sovereignty’,

Skinner risks the very danger of ‘crediting a writer with a meaning he could

not have intended to convey, since that meaning was not available to him’,

and of ‘too readily “reading in” a doctrine which a given writer might in prin-

ciple have meant to state, but in fact had no intention to convey’.37 In doing so

Skinner actually undermines his own enterprise of eliciting a writer’s inten-

tion as a starting point for an adequate understanding of his work by elucidat-

ing the concepts and the linguistic conventions available to him and his

34 Skinner, Foundations, p. 65.35 Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, p. 65.36 Ibid., p. 33.37 Ibid.


readers and by recovering the ‘writer’s mental world, the world of his empiri-

cal beliefs’.38

Though one can see Marsilius as presenting theoretical grounds for a notion

that adumbrated the modern theory of popular sovereignty, his conception of

sovereignty is firmly inscribed within an Aristotelian framework. In addition,

Janet Coleman points out that the vision of the modern state as set forth by

Hobbes, Locke and Max Weber, for example, and the modern liberal notion

of popular sovereignty in a secular context are very different from medieval

corporation theories. Coleman is right to argue that the modern distinction

between state authority and that of the entire community is foreign to medi-

eval corporation theories which elevated the corporation to the ultimate

source of authority and would dismiss a ruler or governing body with absolute

authority as despotic or tyrannical.39

Skinner is by no means exceptional among students of medieval political

thought in applying the concept of popular sovereignty to Marsilius, however,

and perplexity over Marsilius’ notion of sovereignty has actually persisted

since the nineteenth century.40 Recent studies have shown that the Marsilian

700 V. SYROS

38 Q. Skinner, ‘Motives, Intentions and the Interpretation of Texts’, New LiteraryHistory, 3 (1972), p. 393–408, p. 407 — revised and abbreviated version in On LiteraryIntention: Critical Essays, ed. D. Newton-de Molina (Edinburgh, 1976), pp. 210–21;reprinted in Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, pp. 68–78.

39 Coleman, ‘Marsilius of Padua’, pp. 166–8; J. Coleman, ‘Structural Realities ofPower: The Theory and Practice of Monarchies and Republics in Relation to Personaland Collective Liberty’, in The Propagation of Power in the Medieval West, ed.M. Gosman et al. (Groningen, 1997), pp. 207–30, esp. pp. 215–16. For Italy in particular,see The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300–1600, ed. J. Kirshner (Chicago and London,1995). P. Schiera, ‘Legitimacy, Discipline, and Institutions: Three Necessary Conditionsfor the Birth of the Modern State’, in The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300–1600, ed.Julius Kirschner (Chicago, 1996), pp. 11–33, pp. 18–19) equates Marsilius’ concept ofcivitas with the Hobbesian notion of the ‘commonwealth’. A detailed comparison ofMarsilius’ and Hobbes’s political ideas appears in B. Bayona Aznar, ‘Religión y poderen Hobbes y Marsilio de Padua: similitudes y diferencias’, Pensamiento, 63 (2009), pp.221–59. For a survey of medieval views on despotism, see C. Fiocchi, Dispotismo elibertà nel pensiero politico medievale: Riflessioni all’ombra di Aristotele (sec.XIII–XIV) (Bergamo, 2007). Cf. also the discussion in Annabel Brett, ‘Scholastic Politi-cal Thought and the Modern Concept of the State’, in Rethinking the Foundations ofModern Political Thought, ed. Brett and Tully, pp. 130–48.

40 M. Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge,1963), p. 153, sees the notion of ‘popular sovereignty’ as deriving from Greek andRoman sources. See also F. von Bezold, ‘Die Lehre von der Volkssouveränität währenddes Mittelalters’, Historische Zeitschrift, 36 (1876), pp. 313–67 — reprinted in F. vonBezold, Aus Mittelalter und Renaissance: Kulturgeschichtliche Studien (Munich andBerlin, 1918), pp. 1–48; E. Crosa, La sovranità popolare dal Medioevo alla RivoluzioneFrancese (Milan, 1915); E. Reibstein, Volkssouveränität und Freiheitsrechte: Texteund Studien zur politischen Theorie des 14.–18. Jahrhunderts (Freiburg i. Br. andMunich, 1972), Vol. 1, pp. 30–7; H. Hofmann, Repräsentation: Studien zur Wort- und


REVIEW ARTICLE 701

idea of the sovereignty of the multitude is rooted firmly in the doctrine of col-

lective wisdom, that is, the ability of the citizens when coming together to

combine different shares of virtues and prudence and to arrive at better deci-

sions than a small group of experts could achieve.41 In addition, Marsilius’

concept of sovereignty seems much closer to the one used by Aristotle

(kurion, rendered dominans) in his definition of democracy as the form of

constitution in which the mass is sovereign (‘dominant’). (‘Est autem politia

ordo civitatis aliorum principatuum et maxime dominantis omnium.

Dominans quidem enim ubique est politeuma civitatis, politeuma autem est

politia. Dico autem puta in democraticis quidem dominans populus, pauci

autem e contrario in oligarchiis.’42)

Intentions and Motives

Skinner’s argument, that seeking out the actual intention is the quintessence

of the study of political works, is fraught with serious difficulties. First,

though Skinner does, on occasion, point to the distinction between the motives

on the one hand, and the intentions on the other, that lay behind a certain

Begriffsgeschichte von der Antike bis ins 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1974), pp. 191–201;P. Graf Kielmansegg, Volkssouveränität: Eine Untersuchung der Bedingungen demo-kratischer Legitimität (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 59–65; J.R. García Cue, ‘Teoría de la ley yde la soberanía popular en el Defensor pacis de Marsilio de Padua’, Revista de estudiospolíticos, 43 (1985), pp. 107–48; H. Quaritsch, Souveränität: Entstehung und Entwicklungdes Begriffs in Frankreich und Deutschland vom 13. Jahrhundert bis 1806 (Berlin,1986); S.R. Strefling, Igreja e poder: Plenitude do Poder e Soberania Popular emMarsílio de Pádua (Porto Alegre, 2002); D. Stanciu, ‘Coercive Authority and PopularSovereignty in Marsiglio of Padua’s Defensor pacis’, in New Europe College Yearbook2001–2002, ed. I. Vainovski-Mihai (Bucharest, 2005), pp. 321–52.

41 For further discussion and references, see V. Syros, Die Rezeption der aristotelischenpolitischen Philosophie bei Marsilius von Padua: Eine Untersuchung zur ersten Diktiondes Defensor pacis (Leiden and Boston, 2007), pp. 199–212; V. Syros, ‘The Principle ofthe Sovereignty of the Multitude in the Works of Marsilius of Padua, Peter of Auvergneand Some Other Aristotelian Commentators’, in The World of Marsilius of Padua, ed.G. Moreno-Riaño (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 227–48.

42 Aristotelis Politicorvm libri octo: cvm vetvsta translatione Gvilelmi de Moerbeka,ed. F. Susemihl (Leipzig, 1972), 1278b10–14 (pp. 173–4). Also consider A. Brett, ‘Is-sues in Translating the Defensor pacis’, in The World of Marsilius of Padua, ed.Moreno-Riaño, pp. 91–108, p. 105; Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, trans. Gewirth(1956), pp. lxxxviii–lxxxix; A. Lockyer, ‘Aristotle: The Politics’, in A Guide to thePolitical Classics: Plato to Rousseau, ed. M. Forsyth and M. Keens-Soper (Oxford andNew York, 1988), p. 46; R.G. Mulgan, ‘Aristotle’s Sovereign’, Political Studies, 18(1970), pp. 518–22; R.G. Mulgan, Aristotle’s Political Theory: An Introduction for Stu-dents of Political Theory (Oxford and New York, 1977), pp. 59–60. Further, see the dis-cussion in D. Marocco Stuardi, ‘Sovrano e governo nel pensiero di Marsilio da Padova’,in Studi politici in onore di Luigi Firpo, ed. S. Rota Ghibaudi and F. Barcia (Milan,1990), Vol. 1, pp. 15–48.


work,43 he seems to take little notice of it in the Foundations. Second, a writer

does not necessarily always pursue a single aim; he often pursues multiple

goals simultaneously or in the different phases of producing a work. Textual

analysis or the study of the linguistic framework of a work can indeed help to

reveal some of these goals, but there is a chance that some will remain con-

cealed or that the one we opt to put in a privileged position was not the most

decisive in the mind of an author.44 Third, given the broad spectrum of possible

intentions, an interpreter of a text often needs to prefer one certain intention

over the rest, while looking for an infinite number of intentions.45 Fourth, and

more important, Skinner does not seem to acknowledge that there is often a

conflation of motives and intentions or a constant interplay and concatenation

of motives and intentions in the process of composing a work.

Marsilius in particular could have set himself multiple goals while writing

the Defensor pacis: his declared purpose is to expose a singular and obscure

cause of the strife that generated tribulation for the Roman Empire and that

neither Aristotle nor any other philosopher of his time or before had been able

to foresee.46 But at the same time, he looks beyond the Italian context and has-

tens to point out that this cause is contagious and bound to seep into all other

cities and kingdoms,47 just as happened in his contemporary Italy.48 As

Marsilius puts it, the Defensor pacis is thus designed as a recipe to prevent

that cause, so that in the future it would be excluded from all political commu-

nities or cities, thereby allowing virtuous rulers and subjects to live more

securely in a condition of civic tranquillity.49

The foregoing statements indicate that Marsilius’ Defensor pacis is a multi-

faceted work with both ‘Italian’ and ‘universalist’ aspects and that Marsilius

did have a broader purpose that reached beyond the politics of the Italian

city-states. After all, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Defensor

702 V. SYROS

43 Skinner, ‘Motives, Intentions and the Interpretation of Texts’; Quentin Skinner,‘Motives, Intentions and Interpretation’, in Q. Skinner, Visions of Politics, Vol. 1:Regarding Method (Cambridge and New York, 2002), pp. 90–102.

44 As Bhikhu Parekh and Robert Berki point out, ‘a piece of writing is a complexwork which invariably arises out of an intricate web of concerns, desires, fears, impulsesas well as more rational but often far-reaching complex purposes. One does not just sitdown and compose a Leviathan or a Philosophy of Right because one has a definite ‘in-tention’ to perform a single action to bring about a definite result.’ See B. Parekh andR.N. Berki, ‘The History of Political Ideas: A Critique of Q. Skinner’s Methodology’,Journal of the History of Ideas, 34 (1973), pp. 163–84, p. 169.

45 For a similar argument, see L. Mulligan, J. Richards and J.K. Graham, ‘Intentionsand Conventions: A Critique of Quentin Skinner’s Method for the Study of the History ofIdeas’, Political Studies, 27 (1979), pp. 84–98, esp. pp. 87–90.

46 Defensor pacis I.i.3; i.7; xix.3; II.xxvi.19.47 Ibid., I.i.3; xix.12; III.i.48 Ibid., I.i.2; xix.4; II.xxvi.19.49 Ibid., I.i.7.


REVIEW ARTICLE 703

pacis is addressed to Louis of Bavaria,50 and we must seriously speculate as to

whether Marsilius looked to Louis as an agent capable of counteracting papal

interference in temporal affairs and implementing his political programme, even

though he disputes the necessity for a world monarchy.51 In light of this, then,

it is possible to identify multiple intentions in Marsilius’ Defensor pacis: to

trace the source of the civil disturbances that ravaged his contemporary Italy;

to mount a vehement polemic against the papacy’s pretension to plenitude of

power and control of temporal affairs; to ingratiate himself with Louis; and to

develop a general programme of political organization applicable not in his

times only. Although the Defensor pacis can be read as a pièce de

circonstance intended to counter papal claims to temporal power, the fact

remains that the first dictio of the work encapsulates a political theory appli-

cable to the circumstances of various political entities, though Marsilius is

aware that different people in different times and places are inclined toward

different types of government.52

Given that Marsilius’ political thought is open to multiple readings, the

recovery of Marsilius’ actual intentions is contingent upon which interpreta-

tion we choose to favour. A line of research that considered Marsilius’ views

on the supremacy of the emperor over the pope and proposed an ‘imperialist’

reading of the Defensor pacis found its strongest advocate in Jeannine Quil-

let.53 A number of scholars are inclined to look upon Marsilius as a partisan of

republican ideas and interpret his political ideas against the background of the

political realities that prevailed in late medieval Italy.54 Skinner himself opts

for a ‘republican’ reading of Marsilius’ theory; he declares that Marsilius,

along with Bartolus, ‘not only provided the fullest and most systematic

defence of Republican liberty against the coming of the despots; they also

suggested an ingenious way of arguing against the apologists for tyranny in

50 Ibid., I.i.6.51 Ibid., I.xvii.10.52 Ibid., I.ix.10.53 J. Quillet, La philosophie politique de Marsile de Padoue (Paris, 1970); M. Wilks,

‘Corporation and Representation in the Defensor pacis’, Studia Gratiana, 15 (1972), pp.251–92; Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages.

54 A. Gewirth; ‘Republicanism and Absolutism in the Thought of Marsilius ofPadua’, Medioevo, 5 (1979), pp. 23–48; A. Gewirth, Marsilius of Padua and MedievalPolitical Philosophy (New York, 1951; 2nd edn. 1956). See also the discussion in C.J.Nederman, ‘From Defensor pacis to Defensor minor: The Problem of Empire inMarsiglio of Padua’, History of Political Thought, 16 (1995), pp. 313–29. For an excel-lent survey of the various interpretations and scholarly approaches to Marsilius’ politicalthought since the nineteenth century, see B. Bayona Aznar, ‘El periplo de la teoríapolítica de Marsilio de Padua por la historiografía moderna’, Revista de EstudiosPolíticos, 137 (2007), pp. 113–53; as well as J. Ménard, ‘L’aventure historiographiquedu Défenseur de la paix de Marsile de Padoue’, Science et Esprit, 41 (1989), pp.287–322.


their own terms’,55 without considering the fact that in 1319 Marsilius joined a

delegation sent by Cangrande della Scala and Matteo Visconti, the signori of

Verona and Milan respectively, to Charles de la Marche (the future Charles

IV of France), asking for the latter’s support against Robert of Naples and

offering him the captaincy of the Ghibelline league.56

Time and Punishment: The Questions and Answers of the Classics

Skinner contends that ‘the classic texts cannot be concerned with our questions

and answers, but only with their own’.57 Following Robin Collingwood’s

lead, he infers that

there simply are no perennial problems in philosophy: there are only indi-vidual answers to individual questions, with as many different answers asthere are questions, and as many different questions as there are question-ers. There is in consequence simply no hope of seeking the point of studyingthe history of ideas in the attempt to learn directly from the classic authorsby focusing on their attempted answers to supposedly timeless questions.58

One of Skinner’s genuine contributions to scholarship on Marsilius is his

recognition of how much the political realities that obtained in thirteenth-

and fourteenth-century Italy influenced Marsilius’ ideas.59 In the context of

the Defensor pacis, Skinner suggests that ‘the corresponding moral of the

book — as well as the key to understanding its title — is that anyone who

aspires to be a defender of the peace in Northern Italy must above all be a

sworn enemy of the alleged jurisdictional powers of the Church’.60 He contin-

ues, ‘it was obvious, however, especially to such theorists as Marsiglio of

Padua, that Aristotle’s own preoccupations were in fact more closely related

704 V. SYROS

55 Skinner, Foundations, p. 65.56 See also Bayona, Religión y poder, p. 195; Coleman, ‘Marsilius of Padua’, p. 140;

C.W. Previté-Orton, ‘Marsilius of Padua and the Visconti’, English Historical Review,44 (1929), pp. 278–9. Compare also Marsilius’ praise of Matteo Visconti in Defensorpacis II.xxvi.17.

57 Meaning and Context, ed. Tully, p. 65.58 Ibid. See also Q. Skinner, ‘The Rise of, Challenge to and Prospects for a

Collingwoodian Approach to the History of Political Thought’, in The History of Politi-cal Thought in National Context, ed. D. Castiglione and I. Hampsher-Monk (Cambridgeand New York, 2001), pp. 175–88.

59 For similar interpretations see, e.g., N. Rubinstein, ‘Marsilius of Padua and theItalian Political Thought of His Time’, in Europe in the Late Middle Ages, ed. J.R. Haleet al. (Evanston, IL, 1965), pp. 44–75 — reprinted in N. Rubinstein, Studies in ItalianHistory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Vol. 1: Political Thought and the Lan-guage of Politics: Art and Politics, ed. G. Ciappelli (Rome, 2004), pp. 99–130; J.K.Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy: The Evolution of the Civil Life 1000–1350(London, 1973), pp. 186–98; J.K. Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante (Manchester, 1968),pp. 210–11.

60 Skinner, Foundations, p. 22.


REVIEW ARTICLE 705

to the problems of small-scale City Republics such as those of Northern

Italy’.61 This is one of the rare occasions on which Skinner expatiates on the

possible connections between Aristotle’s and Marsilius’ political ideas. Indeed,

medieval writers were aware of the similarities between the political organi-

zation of the Italian city-states and that of the ancient Greek poleis, and espe-

cially classical Athenian democracy as outlined in Aristotle’s Politics. Albert

the Great (c.1200–80), for example, points to affinities between the political

organization of the communes of Lombardy and Genoa and the extreme form

of democracy as described by Aristotle in the Politics, and Ptolemy of Lucca

(c.1236–1327) observes that many Italian cities in his own day resembled

Athens in being ruled by the many.62

But by arguing that Aristotle’s and Marsilius’ concerns were more closely

related to the particular problems of small political entities such as the Italian

cities, Skinner takes little notice of the fact that the driving concerns and scope

of the Politics and the Defensor pacis were very different: the Politics is based

on observations on the constitutional arrangements of various ancient Greek

city-states and addresses a number of questions related to the administration

of the polis; Marsilius’ objective, in contrast, is to diagnose the cause of strife

in his own day. In addition, whereas Aristotle appears disillusioned with the

workings of the Athenian democracy, Marsilius does away with Aristotle’s

fulminations against democracy and advocates a system of political organiza-

tion in many respects similar to the Athenian democracy.

The foregoing considerations indicate that Defensor pacis is a political

treatise too complex and multifaceted to be read merely as a response to the

political conditions that prevailed in late medieval Italy. Conal Condren, for

instance, argues that Marsilius constructed a multivalent political theory

intended to appeal to a large audience ranging from the small Italian city-

states to larger political entities. Marsilius’ method, which Condren desig-

nates as ‘elliptical ambiguity’, uses such concepts as legislator humanus and

pars valentior, which are open to various interpretations.63 Nederman makes

the similar point that Marsilius articulates a ‘generic political theory’, stipu-

61 Ibid., p. 51.62 For references and further discussion, see A. Black, ‘The Commune in Political

Theory in the Late Middle Ages’, in Theorien kommunaler Ordnung in Europa, ed.P. Blickle (Munich, 1996), pp. 99–112, p. 107.

63 C. Condren, The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts: An Essay on PoliticalTheory, Its Inheritance, and the History of Ideas (Princeton, NJ, 1985), pp. 189–97; C.J.Nederman, Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio ofPadua’s Defensor pacis (Lanham, MD, 1995), pp. 19–20. See also the discussions inBayona Aznar, Religión y poder, pp. 177–88; B. Bayona Aznar, ‘La laicidad de lavalentior pars en la filosofía de Marsilio de Padua’, Patristica et Mediaevalia, 26 (2005),pp. 65–87.


lating the modes and arrangements necessary to ensure a stable and lasting

political order beyond specific institutional or geographic boundaries.64

As it is always possible to fathom an infinite number of intentions in the

study of a particular work, so too one can adduce multiple contexts when

studying a masterpiece of political literature.65 Skinner’s thesis that Marsilius’

theory derived from or responded to Italian conditions does not do justice to

the overall scope of the Defensor pacis. As noted above, it always is possible

to ascribe multiple intentions to a certain thinker, and it is likewise possible to

situate a work in various contexts and to discern multiple factors and intellec-

tual forces operative upon a thinker. In Marsilius’ case, these forces include:

the Paduan pre-humanists; the Parisian milieu; the medical background of

Marsilius’ political theory; Marsilius’ exposure to contemporary debates on

Averroes and potential links to medieval Jewish political thought, especially

Moses Maimonides; the French Publizistik; Louis of Bavaria’s conflict with

the curia; and, above all, Aristotle’s political thought and the way it influ-

enced Marsilius’ use of certain concepts.66

Conclusions

Skinner proposes a highly selective list of medieval political writers that cul-

minates in the plea for a new canon as an alternative to the conventional canon

of great thinkers. He does not look at the reception of the classical tradition or

the interaction among the medieval Arabic, Jewish and Christian political tra-

ditions; he makes no attempt to bring out the direct or subterranean influences

that medieval Islamic or Jewish political thought exerted on such thinkers as

Machiavelli or on the formation of the lexicon and conceptual arsenal of the

Western political tradition.67 Furthermore, Skinner does not pay due attention

to the factors at work in a ‘classic’’s use (Marsilius) and interpretation of

706 V. SYROS

64 Nederman, Community and Consent, pp. 15, 20. For example, in his discussion ofcollective prudence, Marsilius takes over Aristotle’s qualifications regarding the sover-eignty of the multitude: provided that a multitude is not too vile, although each of itsmembers will be a worse judge than those who have knowledge, taken all together theywill be better judges than a few experts, or at least not worse (Defensor pacis I.xiii.4.) Cf.Aristotle, Politics 1282a15–16. Likewise, in his typology of the various kinds of king-ship, Marsilius points out that certain monarchs in Asia are hereditary, and while theyrule in conformity with the laws, their rule is like that of despots calculated to serve theruler’s interests rather than the common utility. Inhabitants of these regions tolerate suchrule without protest because of their barbaric and slavish nature and the influence of cus-tom (Defensor pacis I.ix.4). Cf. Aristotle, Politics 1285a23.

65 See also J.P. Diggins, ‘The Oyster and the Pearl: The Problem of Contextualism inIntellectual History’, History and Theory, 23 (1984), pp. 151–69, p. 153.

66 See the analysis of some of the intellectual influences on Marsilius’ thought inColeman, ‘Marsilius of Padua’, p. 140.

67 See the discussion in P.A. Rahe, Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Politi-cal Theory under the English Republic (Cambridge and New York, 2008), pp. 59–83.


REVIEW ARTICLE 707

another ‘classic’ (Aristotle): namely, the goals and preconceptions that deter-

mine a writer’s reading of a classic and how legitimate such an interpretation

is and/or how it can help us reconstruct the context within which a particular

writer frames his ideas.68

Skinner’s concern with the ideas and meaning in a published text leaves no

room for a broader range of sources, such as data and information garnered

from private correspondence or diaries.69 Especially today, students of politi-

cal thought have ample opportunities for interdisciplinary research and col-

laborative work across various disciplines. One can envisage the possibility

of collaborative work among epigraphy, papyrology, numismatics, archaeol-

ogy and history of science when dealing with texts of the classical period or

the possibility of relying on palaeography.

Most crucially, however, Skinner negates the existence of enduring ques-

tions in the history of political thought and sees no point in studying the his-

tory of ideas in an attempt to learn directly from classic authors by

concentrating on their answers to supposedly timeless questions. An intricate

conundrum about Skinner’s work concerns his understanding of the standards

by which a political writer or work should qualify as ‘classic’.70 If, as Skinner

assumes, works of the past are concerned with their own questions, but not

ours, one needs to define or re-define the criteria for classifying a particular

writer as classic if (s)he deals with questions and problems that do not concern

us and which we are perhaps not able to perceive.

This is not to overlook the fact that political thinkers of the past engaged

with the issues or sought to come to grips with the problems of their own day.

Indeed, many of the great works of political thought were motivated by the

effort to theorize remedies for various kinds of political ills. Averroes’ œuvre,

for instance, abounds with oblique references to the political realities that pre-

68 See also J.J.E. Garcia, ‘Interpretation of the Philosophical Classics: Clarificationand Issues’, in Uses and Abuses of the Classics: Western Interpretations of Greek Philos-ophy, ed. J.J.E. Garcia and J. Yu (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2004), pp. 1–10,pp. 6–7.

69 For a similar point, see Mulligan, Richards and Graham, ‘Intentions and Conven-tions’, p. 96. See also J. Farr, ‘Understanding Conceptual Change Politically’, in Politi-cal Innovation and Conceptual Change, ed. T. Ball et al. (Cambridge and New York,1989), pp. 24–49, p. 39.

70 See also J.G. Gunnel, ‘Theory and Tradition’, in Between Philosophy and Politics:The Alienation of Political Theory (Amherst, 1986), pp. 91–133; D. Baumgold, ‘Politi-cal Commentary on the History of Political Theory’, American Political Science Review,75 (1981), pp. 928–40; J.B. Sanderson, ‘The Historian and the “Masters” of PoliticalThought’, Political Studies, 16 (1968), pp. 43–54; and, in general, I. Calvino, Why Readthe Classics?, trans. M. McLaughlin (New York, 1999), pp. 3–9.


vailed in twelfth-century Almohad Spain,71 while Han Fei Zi’s (d.233 BC)

political thought is a response to the phenomena of instability and dissension

during the Warring States Period.72 But the very fact that seminal political

thinkers of the past sought to respond to the political realities and exigencies

of their time does not make their ideas less germane to the study of the ques-

tions that confront the modern world and the West in particular.73

Vasileios Syros UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

708 V. SYROS

71 See, e.g., S. Stroumsa, ‘Philosophes Almohades? Averroès, Maïmonide et l’idéologiealmohade’, in Los Almohades: Problemas y perspectivas, ed. P. Cressier et al. (Madrid,2005), Vol. 2, pp. 1137–62, esp. pp. 1144–50.

72 For comparisons between Han Fei Zi and Machiavelli, see, e.g., B.-A. Scharfstein,‘The Machiavellian Legalism of Ancient China’, chapter 2 of Amoral Politics: The Per-sistent Truth of Machiavellism (Albany, 1995), pp. 21–53; G. Wu, Die Staatslehre desHan Fei: Ein Beitrag zur chinesischen Idee der Staatsräson (Vienna and New York,1978).

73 See also J. Coleman, ‘Introduction’, to A History of Political Thought, Vol. 1:From Ancient Greece to Early Christianity (Oxford and Malden, MA, 2000), pp. 1–20,p. 15; M. Leslie, ‘In Defence of Anachronism’, Political Studies, 18 (1970), pp. 433–47.


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