Conceptual History and the Philosophy of the Later Wittgenstein: A Critique of Quentin Skinner’s Contextualist Method

Journal of the Philosophy of History 5 (1):54-83 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Although first published in 1969, the methodological views advanced in Quentin Skinner's “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” remain relevant today. In his article Skinner suggests that it would be inappropriate to even attempt to write the history of any idea or concept. In support of this view, Skinner advances two arguments, one derived from the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and the other from that of J. L. Austin.In this paper I focus on the first of these arguments. I claim that the conclusion which Skinner draws from this particular argument does not necessarily follow and that an alternative assessment of the methodological significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for historians of ideas is possible. On this alternative view, far from ruling out conceptual history, an appeal to the view of meaning set out in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations leads to a quite different conclusion, namely that the writing of such a history is arguably a necessary precondition for the elucidation of the meaning of a number of the core concepts in the canon of the history of political thought.Skinner's views have changed somewhat since 1969. Indeed, from the mid 1970s onwards he came to relax the strict opposition to the idea of conceptual history to which he was then committed. The paper concludes by noting that this evolution in Skinner's thinking has made him much more sympathetic than anybody reading “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” would have imagined to the research project of the Begriffgeschichte School of conceptual history.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 99,666

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Quentin Skinner's revised historical contextualism: a critique.Robert Lamb - 2009 - History of the Human Sciences 22 (3):51-73.
Quentin Skinner’s Attempt to Clarify Collingwood.David Černín - 2023 - Teorie Vědy / Theory of Science 1 (1).

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-02-17

Downloads
34 (#606,060)

6 months
11 (#266,332)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Tony Burns
Nottingham Trent University (PhD)

References found in this work

On sense and reference.Gottlob Frege - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel (eds.), Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 36--56.
A reply to my critics.Quentin Skinner - 1988 - In James Tully (ed.), Meaning and context: Quentin Skinner and his critics. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press. pp. 234.
Natural law.Richard Wollheim - 1967 - In Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of philosophy. New York,: Macmillan. pp. 5--450.

View all 6 references / Add more references