# The Mythologies of Contextualism: Method and Judgment in Skinner’s Visions of Politics

Michelle T. Clarke. Journal article, 2013.
Political Studies 61, no. 4 (2013): 767–783.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.01000.x
Author's site: https://michelletclarke.com/

## Summary

Argues that Quentin Skinner’s contextualism does not deliver the interpretive method it promises. Skinner traces the ‘mythologies’ of textualist reading to its reliance on the interpreter’s judgment and presents contextualism as a discipline that minimizes judgment, yet judgment remains indispensable to his own practice. His added assumption that philosophers write chiefly for strategic, ideological ends produces a mythology of its own, casting philosophical authors as ideologues, though his insistence on recovering an author’s own perspective remains valuable.

## Topics

- Method
- Contextualism
- Quentin Skinner
- Cambridge School
- Interpretation
- Ideology

## How to cite

Clarke, Michelle T. “The Mythologies of Contextualism: Method and Judgment in Skinner’s Visions of Politics.” *Political Studies* 61, no. 4 (2013): 767–783. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.01000.x.

```bibtex
@article{clarke2013mythologies,
  author    = {Clarke, Michelle T.},
  title     = {{The Mythologies of Contextualism: Method and Judgment in Skinner's \emph{Visions of Politics}}},
  year      = {2013},
  journal   = {Political Studies},
  volume    = {61},
  number    = {4},
  pages     = {767--783},
  doi       = {10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.01000.x},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.01000.x}
}
```

## Related work by the author

- Machiavelli and the Imagined Rome of Renaissance Humanism (History of Political Thought, 2015): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/machiavelli-imagined-rome-humanism.md
- Doing Violence to the Roman Idea of Liberty? Freedom as Bodily Integrity in Roman Political Thought (History of Political Thought, 2014): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/roman-liberty-bodily-integrity.md