The History of Political Thought as secular genealogy: the case of liberty in early modern England. Issue 1 (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Condren, Conal
• Is Part Of: Intellectual history review. Volume 27:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 115
• Page End: 133
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: The History of Political Thought -- secularisation -- liberty -- republican -- negative -- office -- genealogy -- Thomas Hobbes; Intellectual life -- History -- Periodicals; 001.09005
• DOI: 10.1080/17496977.2016.1255456
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1749-6977

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The History of Political Thought originated in, and partially remains an adjunct to the academic study of politics. As such it is not a mere subject matter or authentic tradition of speculation, but a secularising genealogy in some tension with an impulse to rigorous historicity. It provides an under-acknowledged context for the thinkers and concepts placed within it. The difficulties and consequent distortions are illustrated with reference to seventeenth-century discussions of liberty. It is argued that notions of negative liberty and Republican liberty as an ideological alternative are secularising genealogical projections that distort the character of seventeenth-century debate; but that republican liberty can be reformulated in more historically plausible terms as a special case of one of the entailments of contentious office-holding in and beyond a secularised conception of the political. Thomas Hobbes's conceptions of liberty provide a concluding illustration.