This article reports on a conversation convened by Quentin Skinner at the invitation of the Editors of The Journal of Political Philosophy and held in Cambridge on 13 February 2001.

I choose this somewhat awkward title because it seems to me to be necessary to insist on the uncertainty, the lack of structure, in the connection between the generations. This is due to a large extent of course to the multiple character of the expression ‘generation’ itself; it is a word with such a tangle of related and overlapping meanings attached to it that it is surprising to find that it goes on being used without qualificatory adjectives. Let us look (...) at a few of the notions which ‘generation’ covers. (shrink)

I choose this somewhat awkward title because it seems to me to be necessary to insist on the uncertainty, the lack of structure, in the connection between the generations. This is due to a large extent of course to the multiple character of the expression ‘generation’ itself; it is a word with such a tangle of related and overlapping meanings attached to it that it is surprising to find that it goes on being used without qualificatory adjectives. Let us look (...) at a few of the notions which ‘generation’ covers. (shrink)