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Interpreting Texts

Adrian Blau

Senior Lecturer in Politics

Department of Political Economy

King’s College London

[email protected]

Draft chapter for Adrian Blau, ed., Methods in Analytical Political Theory

(Cambridge University Press, 2016).

N.B. As with other chapters in this book, text in bold is ‘how-to’ advice for students.

— DRAFT 1: 16 July 2015 —

NOT FOR CITATION.

Comments and criticisms welcome,

but by 1 August if at all possible!

(The manuscript is to be submitted on 1 Sept.)

8263 words, plus references

mailto:[email protected]

1. Introduction: meanings and understandings

There are three main ways of interpreting texts, based on three kinds of understanding

and three kinds of meaning: what authors mean, what the ideas mean, and what one or both

of the above mean to the reader. Roughly, these kinds of meaning are empirical,

philosophical and aesthetic, respectively.

The last of these is primarily the province of literature departments. Of course, for

those of us in other departments, what texts mean to us can still influence what we study.

Rousseau has made me cry, because of the beauty and passion of his writing. Habermas has

made me cry, for other reasons. But what these texts mean to us is not usually our intellectual

focus and I discuss it no further.

By contrast, the second kind of meaning – what the ideas mean – is very important for

us. Not that you would know it from our methodological literature, which mainly emphasizes

the first kind of meaning: what authors mean. Yet both kinds of meaning matter when

interpreting texts, because they involve different kinds of understanding. If you read J.S. Mill

and understand exactly what he meant by the words he used, you have understood something

very significant. But you understand his writing better if you also spot his ambiguities,

contradictions, successes and failures. Unfortunately, the best methodological writings about

textual interpretation – those by Quentin Skinner (2002a) – say almost nothing about the

second kind of meaning and understanding, and imply that the first can be achieved on its

own.

I seek to connect these two kinds of meaning and these two kinds of understanding. A

piece of research typically prioritizes one of the two, but almost always deals with both. They

are not alternatives: we usually need the first to find the second, and we often use the second

to find the first. That fundamental point has not, I believe, been made in previous

methodological discussions.

Equally unfortunately, most methodological writing gives the wrong impression by

talking about different ‘approaches’ or ‘schools of thought’, like the Cambridge School,

Straussianism, Marxism, and so on. These categories have some value and I cover them

below. But everyone reading this chapter knows that mental categories influence thoughts

and actions. Past authors could not think what we think, and we cannot think what future

people will think. We have all learned new distinctions that let us see things differently: our

previous categories were holding us back.

So, it is not outlandish to suggest that the categories with which many of us think

about methods of interpretation have constrained our thinking. Most troubling is when

Interpreting Texts (Adrian Blau, King’s College London) – draft 1, 16 July 2015 p. 2 of 27

commentators imply that these approaches are very different without adding that there are

principles of good interpretation which apply to all of us (see especially Rorty 1984: 49;

Dunn 1996: 19; Ball 2004: 19; Richter 2009: 7-11; Schulz and Weiss 2010: 284, 287-8). This

chapter’s main aim is to make explicit these universal principles of good interpretation. You

will find relevant principles in every section, even for categories you might think do not fit

you.

Three brief caveats. First, my examples are mostly historical but the principles apply

to all texts. For example, Seana Shiffrin’s (2004: 1644-62) careful probing of Rawls’s

ambiguous discussion of racial equality reads like someone navigating tricky passages in

Hobbes or Locke.

Second, my examples mainly come from well-known Western authors, like Plato and

Machiavelli. But there are good reasons to study other thinkers (Stuurman 2000: 152-65; see

also the chapters in this volume by Ackerly and Bajpai on comparative political theory, and

by Leader Maynard on ideological analysis).

Third, and most important, although I cover both empirical interpretation (e.g. what

Locke meant by ‘trust’) and philosophical interpretation (e.g. how well Aristotle’s arguments

work), and although I link the two more than other commentators do, most of my how-to

guidance involves empirical interpretation. Other chapters in this volume will help more for

readers primarily interested in philosophical interpretation (especially the chapters by

Brownlee and Stemplowska on thought experiments, Knight on reflective equilibrium, and

Frazer on moral sentimentalism). But you should still read this chapter to the extent that you

want to get historical authors right.

Section 2 summarizes the Cambridge School of interpretation: despite its crucially

important focus on history and context, there are other secrets to its success, and pitfalls we

must all beware. Section 3 addresses Begriffsgeschichte, conceptual history, and genealogy,

which combine Cambridge-School interpretation with conceptual comparison. Section 4

tackles philosophical approaches, a category largely missing from previous accounts despite

being very common. Philosophical analysis even matters for historians, I argue. Section 5

considers reconstruction, which is sometimes seen as a purely philosophical approach, but

which actually we all do. Section 6 questions the usefulness of treating perspectives like

feminism or Straussianism as if they are ‘approaches’. They provide hypotheses and

distinctions which help us see things that other scholars overlook, but there are far more

‘approaches’ than we usually think. Nor is ‘reading between the lines’ exclusively associated

with Straussian interpretation, section 7 argues. Section 8 then stands back and offers more


general principles of good interpretation that apply to all of us – whatever categories,

approaches or schools of thought we identify with.

2. The Cambridge School

The increasingly misnamed Cambridge School – most of its key figures have now left

Cambridge – has dominated our methodological literature for half a century. The Cambridge

School has essentially won the battle. Although aspects of its proponents’ arguments remain

controversial, their core claim is widely accepted: place texts in their historical contexts.

Even consulting such historical research without doing it oneself makes misinterpretation less

likely.

The Cambridge School arose in the late 1940s and came to prominence in the 1960s,

with the theoretical writings and substantive interpretations of writers like Peter Laslett, John

Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and John Dunn (Pocock 2006: 37-9). Given diversity within and

between these writers and their followers (Boucher 1985: 151-272), I focus mainly on

Skinner, who I regard as the supreme methodologist in our field. While I have learned much

from his methodological writings, I have actually learned more from his substantive

interpretations, which I find even more methodologically impressive. By contrast, Mark

Bevir (1999: 40-50, 327) only tackles Skinner’s methodological writings and seems to me to

miss part of Skinner’s brilliance (see also Stuurman 2000: 319; Skinner 2002a: 178-9).

Treating Skinner as a practitioner, not just a theorist, lets me sidestep his speech-act

theorizing, which is essentially separate to contextual analysis (Hutton 2014: 927) and which

I address elsewhere (Blau 2014).

Although Skinner does not write this, and although most commentators emphasize his

contextualism, the foundation of Skinner’s success is actually close textual analysis. Indeed,

this is how he teaches history of political thought to graduate students, I understand. The first

principle of Cambridge-School analysis, and all sensible textual interpretation, is thus: read

an author’s texts carefully. Dipping in, which we inevitably do with some authors, is

dangerous.

Reading texts carefully means that we should try to read passages in their textual

context. Consider Hobbes’s comment that ‘the Thoughts, are to the Desires, as Scouts, and

Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things desired’ (Hobbes 1651, chapter 8

paragraph 16, p. 53). Read out of context, this sounds as if Hobbes is implying that reason is


the slave of the passions. Read in the context of the chapter as a whole, Hobbes is actually not

discussing reason at all (Blau 2015c: section 4.2).

We should thus read an author’s texts widely, to avoid overlooking important ideas

elsewhere in the text and in other texts, including ‘non-political’ texts. Rousseau thought that

Machiavelli’s Prince only praised Cesare Borgia to indicate insincerity and perhaps esoteric

intent (The Social Contract book 3 chapter 6 paragraph 5, p. 95 – henceforth abbreviated in

the form TSC 3.6.5: 95), but Machiavelli was praising Borgia much earlier (Skinner 1981: 9-

12). Machiavelli’s play Clizia gives us different perspectives on the relationship between

women and virtú than we get from the Prince and Discourses (Zuckert 2004). Hobbes’s

Leviathan may be his most advanced text, but it makes more sense alongside other Hobbes

texts: for example, his account of individual deliberation is more detailed elsewhere (e.g.

Hobbes 1656). In practice, though, we cannot always read as much of an author’s output as

we would like.

Reading an author’s texts widely may tempt us to exaggerate authors’ coherence

(Skinner 2002a: 67-72). This is a huge danger. When an author seems unclear or

contradictory, philosophers often try to make this coherent, as with Rawls’s (2007: 199-200)

interpretation of Rousseau on amour propre. Philosophically, it is fine to construct a

Rousseauian ‘system’ of ideas that makes more sense than Rousseau. After all, most things

make more sense than Rousseau. But empirically, this may or may not be what Rousseau had

in mind: authors make mistakes or change their minds. You never know when to read

different ideas/texts into each other and when they are not consistent. Consider both

hypotheses.

Textual analysis is never enough: a key Cambridge-School contribution is to place

texts in linguistic context by reading other texts from the similar time/place, or by

reading the work of scholars who have done this. This can let us understand words we no

longer use, like ‘dehortation’, and helps us spot ‘false friends’ – words which look familiar

but which once meant something different, like ‘police’, ‘pleasant’, ‘prejudice’, ‘pretend’, or

‘politic’.

Placing texts in their linguistic context may not solve our problems. For example,

when Hobbes discusses the ‘dictates’ of reason’ (e.g. De Cive chapter 3 section 19, p. 51),

this could mean that reason makes us do something, i.e. acts as a dictator, or that reason

tells/dictates to us what to do but lets us decide. Unfortunately, both senses were used in

Hobbes’s day, by Hooker and by Donne respectively (Blau 2015c: section 5). I doubt that

contextual analysis will resolve this: ultimately we must think through Hobbes’s comments


philosophically, to infer how strong reason is in his account. Combining empirical and

philosophical analysis is emphasized throughout this chapter, but the omission of this point in

Cambridge-School methodological writings is a major gap, or as academics like to say, a

major ‘lacuna’.

Placing texts in their linguistic context also helps us infer intentions and indicates

originality. Machiavelli uses ‘fortuna’ conventionally but ‘virtú’ unconventionally –

dramatically undercutting the orthodoxies of his day (Skinner 1981: 24-31, 34-47). If we only

read the ‘canon’ of great thinkers, we will miss part of what makes these texts so ground-

breaking. This should be remembered when we hear claims that the Cambridge School had ‘a

hugely negative impact’ by making the study the study of past thinkers ‘merely antiquarian’,

even ‘frivolous’ (Kelly 2006: 48). But understanding how authors subtly knifed their lesser

known contemporaries can make these texts wonderfully exciting. Moreover, as we will see,

‘merely antiquarian’ scholarship can help contemporary normative analysis.

We should thus place texts in their intellectual contexts – political, philosophical,

religious, and so on. Consider Rousseau’s claim that a man can be forced to obey the law

and still be free (TSC 1.7.8: 53). Rousseau’s justification is unclear. Helena Rosenblatt

suggests that Rousseau, like many opponents of the Genevan government, implies a

traditional Christian/Calvinist view of freedom. ‘Just like abiding by God’s will makes men

free in Christian thought, abiding by the general will makes citizens free in Rousseau’s

thought’ (Rosenblatt 1997: 255-6; also 246-7). This explanation, whereby adhering to the

general will thereby makes one free, fits part of what Rousseau writes and is surely relevant.

But Rousseau immediately goes on to describe the relation in instrumental terms: forcing

someone to obey the general will makes them free by guaranteeing them from personal

dependence. This is not captured by Rosenblatt’s explanation. I suspect that Rosenblatt has

been too quick to assume that the contextual parallel provides the whole answer. Again, we

need both contextual and philosophical analysis here. Unfortunately, half a century of

Cambridge-School methodological theorizing has not addressed this issue.

Moreover, historical parallels can be coincidental. According to Richard Tuck,

Hobbes was responding to a form of scepticism (1993: 285-7, 293-8, 304-7, 316). Most

commentators, though, explain the apparent parallels differently (e.g. Zagorin 1993: 512-8).

No evidence, including contextual evidence, is conclusive: the same evidence can always

be read differently. Sometimes the problem is not an incorrect context but inattention to

other relevant contexts: thus Skinner’s work on liberty has arguably neglected the contexts of


political economy and theology, which imply somewhat different conclusions (Whatmore

2006: 121-5).

Such points have not been adequately theorized by Cambridge School advocates, who

have trumpeted the value of historical interpretation of texts without saying much about how

to do it well (Green 2015: 436). The starting-point, as section 8 argues, is to place

hypotheses, inference and evidence centre-stage. Historians who doubt this should consider

what happens when one ‘knows’ one’s answer is right and just looks for evidence that fits it,

as with Leo Strauss (Blau 2012).

Contextualization can even help with recent authors. We understand Rawls better by

placing him in his political and philosophical contexts (see, respectively, Forrester 2014;

Woolf 2013). Cambridge-School advocates have been curiously quick to read and criticize

Rawls without placing him in context. Some do not even read him carefully (see e.g. the

criticisms of Raymond Geuss by Sagar 2014). But in truth we can understand much of Rawls

without contextualizing him – just as with some passages in historical texts. Contextual

analysis, usually helps, but it is not always necessary, and often insufficient.

3. Begriffsgeschichte, conceptual history, and genealogy

Begriffsgeschichte (in English: the ‘history of concepts’) is often associated with

Reinhard Koselleck, who co-led the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (in English: Basic

Concepts in History), a multi-volume, 7000-page analysis of over 100 social and political

concepts, published in German between 1972 and 1997. This enterprise is so big, requiring so

many years and so many authors, that I do not cover it here. (For more information, see

Richter 1996. For much more detail on the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe in particular and

Begriffsgeschichte more generally, see Richter 1995, especially pp. 124-42 on similarities and

differences between Begriffsgeschichte and Cambridge-School analysis.)

I focus instead on the smaller-scale version of Begriffsgeschichte: conceptual history,

or genealogy. I treat the terms as equivalent: Skinner now calls his conceptual history of the

state (1989: 90-126) a genealogy of the state (2009). (For other kinds of genealogy, see Lane

2012a: 75-82.) Conceptual history has long been practised informally but arrived self-

consciously in the Anglo-American mainstream with Terence Ball, James Farr and Russell

Hanson’s edited book Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (1989). Each chapter

takes a concept (e.g. democracy, patriotism, rights) and examines different conceptions of

that concept over time and sometimes place. (For the concept/conception distinction – i.e. a


general idea, and particular versions of that idea – see Rawls 1971: 5.) This is interesting and

important not only historically and politically but also normatively: we see why some

conceptions won out, how different contemporary conceptions often are to earlier ones, and

how earlier ones might revive contemporary discussions. You don’t need to use conceptual

history to make normative arguments, but be attentive to the normative implications of

your interpretations in case you can see an application to a contemporary argument.

One potential pitfall is failing to distinguish a word and an idea, as with Peter Euben’s

(1989) conceptual history of corruption. I am not sure that Thucydides’s idea of stasis

involves corruption – an inevitable problem when one deals with different languages, which

is why Skinner sometimes sticks to Anglophone texts (2009: 325). The problem applies even

within one language. What Euben says Hobbes says about corruption is actually what Hobbes

says about ‘sedition’: his comments on ‘corruption’ are very different (Blau 2009: especially

614-5). Euben’s analysis remains instructive but risks confusing readers. So, be conscious,

and if possible explicit, about the extent to which you are focusing on the word and/or

the idea.

We can think of conceptual history as having two parts: empirical and conceptual.

The empirical part is often Cambridge-School analysis, where as Skinner writes, the primary

task is to recover authors’ own understandings (Skinner 2002a: 50). The second stage

involves conceptual comparison. In other words, stand back and compare authors’

understandings – ask if Hobbes and Locke understand liberty in the same way, for instance.

(See Olsthoorn’s chapter in this volume, and also Rehfeld’s.) Careful conceptual analysis is

vital, as with Skinner’s fine-grained genealogy of liberty (2003: 22).

You may even want to apply anachronistic conceptualizations. Anachronism is

dangerous and can infect our efforts to recover authors’ meanings (Skinner 2002a: 49-51).

But if handled carefully, and preferably not until you have first recovered authors’ meanings,

it lets us apply conceptual frameworks that highlight similarities and differences between

authors. For example, Rousseau’s Considerations on the Government of Poland wants

citizens to elect deputies every six weeks, on an explicit set of instructions, divergence from

which would see deputies being executed (Rousseau 1997: chapter 7 paragraphs 14-19, pp.

201-3). This is a great example of the so-called ‘mandate’ or ‘delegate’ conception of

representation (Pitkin 1967: 145-7). Rousseau did not use these terms and refused to call this

‘representation’ (TSC 3.15.5-6: 114). But what he says amounts to how we use these terms.

So, first try to work out what authors meant, then see how well this fits your own

conceptualization or an existing one.


Case selection needs attention. The ideal – taking all possible cases – is impractical,

especially in a single chapter or article. Be conscious, and perhaps explicit, about how

your case-selection may limit your conclusions, such as whether your claims are restricted

to a particular time and place (e.g. Skinner 2009: 325). You may also need to consider

words not used, as well as words used, as with Josiah Ober’s analysis of ‘democracy’ and

similar terms in ancient Greece (2008: 5, 7).

4. Philosophical analyses

I now address what we might call ‘philosophical’ approaches (following the

terminology of e.g. Wokler 2012: 121). Philosophical analysis is extremely common in

politics and philosophy departments, and even historians do it. Yet previous categorizations

cover it at best partially, or not at all (Rorty 1984; Dunn 1996: 19; Ball 2004; Ball 2011: 49-

57; Schulz and Weiss 2010: 284-8; Klosko 2011).

Philosophical approaches need the first kind of meaning mentioned at the start of this

paper: what authors mean. But the main focus of philosophical approaches, or at least

philosophical parts of other kinds of analysis, is on the second kind of meaning: what the

ideas mean/imply. Examples include how well an author’s arguments work, as with A.P.

Martinich’s (2005: 80-105) testing of Hobbes’s laws of nature; how certain ideas fit together,

as with John Gray’s (1996: 70-85) reconstruction of Mill on happiness; and what we can

learn today, as with Skinner on liberty (2003: 24-5).

Note that these scholars are, respectively, a philosopher, a political theorist and a

historian. Although Skinner’s early writings avoided normative engagement, even rebuking

Strauss for describing Machiavelli as a teacher of evil (1981: 88), more recently he

encourages historians to seek contemporary insights from historical texts (e.g. 2002a: viii, 89,

125-7). Just as conceptual history had two essentially different parts (one empirical, one

conceptual), so too here: the first stage is Cambridge-School empirical analysis, the second

stage involves applying this for contemporary purposes.

And – crucially – philosophical analysis can even help scholars whose main aim is to

uncover authors’ meanings and motives. To infer what Hobbes meant by liberty, and why he

changed his account, it helped Skinner to think through the philosophical implications of

Hobbes’s arguments. Section 2 thus argued that historians may need philosophical analysis to

uncover authors’ meanings.


Section 2 also noted that philosophical readings may legitimately diverge from what

authors actually thought. Skinner (2003) starts by working out what historical republicans

meant, but then, when applying their insights on liberty to contemporary issues, rightly drops

their gender assumptions. Gray also begins with a careful reading of Mill, but in seeing how

well Mill’s ideas interconnect, is explicitly agnostic about whether this is what Mill had in

mind: all the pieces are there and they form a coherent system, but we just do not know how

conscious Mill was of this (1996: 70-85). Melissa Lane’s ‘unabashed appropriation’ of Plato

maintains ‘the structure of his effort’ but consciously changes many details (2012b: 23, 25).

Gregory Kavka (1986) starts by seeking to understand Hobbes in his own terms, then finds

problems with Hobbes’s account. This leads Kavka to undertake a ‘reworking’ of Hobbes’s

flawed understanding of powers, ‘filling in a critical gap in Hobbes’s argument’ about the

state of nature, and revising Hobbes’s arguments in ways that are broadly in tune with his

project but which he could not have conceived of. Kavka’s theory is explicitly ‘Hobbesian’,

not Hobbes’s (1986: xiv, 3-4, 93-107).

So, be conscious, and preferably explicit, when you diverge from historical

authors. For example, Rousseau seems to talk about democracy in two different ways: with

and without deliberation (e.g. respectively, TSC 4.2.10: 124 and 2.3.3: 60). Imagine that you

want to use Rousseau to defend a deliberative view of democracy, but you are not sure that he

preferred this view; perhaps you even suspect that he ultimately preferred the non-

deliberative view. Either way, it is fine to use these comments as if they are supporting

deliberative democracy, provided you indicate if your Rousseau may not be authentic. Refer

to a ‘Rousseauian’ or ‘broadly Rousseauian’ account, for example, and only say ‘Rousseau

argues’ or ‘Rousseau believes’ when you are indeed trying to stay true to Rousseau. This will

not stop some historians from making dismissive noises about you ‘pillaging the classics’ to

find ideas for modern times (Tuck 2007: 69). But thankfully, there is not yet a law against

doing this.

5. Reconstruction

Reconstruction means filling in gaps, and probing, refining and if needs be improving

the arguments. A first-rate reconstructor is John Gray, whose reconstruction of Mill I have

just praised. Likewise, Gray’s systematization of Isaiah Berlin’s liberalism (Gray 1995)

collects Berlin’s arguments in one place and shows their links and underpinnings, such as

Berlin’s agonism and value-pluralism. This is true to Berlin but is clearer and more


compelling. If Gray’s reconstructions of Mill and Berlin are right, we understand these

authors better than if we read them without reconstructing them.

Understandably, writers often treat reconstruction as a special technique (e.g. Rorty

1984: 49-53). But this is misleading: some degree and some kind of reconstruction are

inseparable from the very nature of interpretation, and necessary to the understanding of our

texts. Again, compartmentalizing approaches into different categories has led us to overlook

key unifying ideas. I will thus start with minimal kinds of reconstruction, which everyone

does even in empirical interpretations, and work up to fully-fledged variants which are more

philosophical.

All communication involves resolving ambiguities and filling in gaps: we could not

possibly say everything we want to say (Searle 1978). If you ask ‘Did you have a good day?’,

you presumably mean ‘Did you have a good day [today]?’, not ‘Did you have a good day

[five weeks after you were born]?’. Likewise, when Sidgwick (1981: ix) writes that he has

made ‘numerous alterations and additions’ in preparing the second edition of The Methods of

Ethics, he presumably means ‘numerous alterations and additions [to this book]’, not

‘numerous alteration and addition [to my trousers]’, even though that is logically consistent

with what he wrote, and might have been a better use of his time.

In short, we cannot understand the simplest statement without reconstructing it. Our

brains do this in a flash as we talk to each other, but when interpreting texts the process is

often slower and more conscious. Consider this example from Machiavelli’s Prince:

how men live is so different from how they should live that a ruler who does not do

what is generally done, but persists in doing what ought to be done, will undermine

his power rather than maintain it. If a ruler who wants always to act honourably is

surrounded by many unscrupulous men his downfall is inevitable. Therefore, a ruler

who wishes to maintain his power must be prepared to act immorally when this

becomes necessary (The Prince chapter 15 paragraph 1, pp. 54-5).

Taken literally, the first sentence’s ‘what ought to be done’ implies that rulers ought not to do

what they ought to do. Perhaps Machiavelli is saying this: no author makes complete sense.

More likely, given the next two sentences and much of the book, he means a particular kind

of ‘ought’: traditional, humanist, Christian morality. So, the first sentence probably means

that rulers should not do ‘what [Christian morality says] ought to be done’.


Here, crucially, we are reading an author’s ‘leading ideas’ into a passage

(Schleiermacher 1998: 27). Since much of The Prince seeks to undercut traditional Christian

morality, it would be odd if this clashed with the above passage. But not impossible: we

cannot know for sure what the leading ideas are (Rawls 2007: 29-30) and no author is fully

consistent (Skinner 2002a: 67-72). Still, resolving this ambiguity one way or another involves

reconstructing Machiavelli – filling gaps he does not fill – without which we cannot

understand this passage in relation to the broader text.

Now consider Rousseau’s brief comments on freedom and its three varieties (natural,

civil, moral) in chapters 1.7 and 1.8 of The Social Contract. This requires much

reconstruction even to understand the core terms. For example, Rousseau mentions ‘natural

freedom and an unlimited right to everything that tempts him’, and ‘civil freedom and

property in everything he possesses’. But each ‘and’ is ambiguous. Does Rousseau mean ‘and

[by which I mean]’ or ‘and [also]’ (Bertram 2004: 87)? In other words, is the second part of

each clause what natural and civil freedom are, or are these things which accompany natural

and civil freedom? Worse, when Rousseau writes that a man may be ‘forced to be free’, does

this mean civil and/or moral freedom? To make such inferences, or to see if Rousseau’s ideas

are incomplete or fundamentally unclear, we must probe these passages philosophically, and

relate them to similar passages such as book 4 chapter 2’s account of freedom and the general

will. That is why I have been arguing that to recover authors’ meanings, we must sometimes

think philosophically, not just historically. Otherwise, we have not properly understood what

Rousseau meant by these terms or passages. Again, Cambridge-School theorists have not to

my knowledge made this point, even though they sometimes do it in practice (e.g. Skinner

2008: 24, 45, 108, 132-8).

A more troubling example involves Mill. On Liberty repeatedly says that you can do

as you like, even harm yourself, provided you do not harm others (especially chapter 1

paragraph 9, p. 13) – but suddenly Mill says, briefly and without justification, that you cannot

do self-harming things in public if they cause offence (chapter 5 paragraph 7, p. 98). This

sounds like an astonishing about-turn. Perhaps we should disregard this passing comment (as

recommended by Gray 1996: 102): scholars often implicitly or explicitly ignore one part of

palpable contradictions. But before disregarding such things, we should try to resolve the

contradictions. If it turns out that we have misunderstood what Mill means by harm, or

misunderstood the supremacy of the harm principle, then we would have to rethink other

parts of the text. In short, to understand central ideas in On Liberty, we should resolve this


contradiction by thinking through the problems and seeing if we can reconstruct Mill more

consistently, and by disregarding this passage otherwise.

We do something similar when we assess the consistency of two different texts by an

author. Can we understand The Prince better by drawing on The Discourses, and vice versa?

We should be careful not to assume too much consistency (Skinner 2002a: 70-1), because

Machiavelli’s audiences and motivations were different (Skinner 1978: 153-4). We must thus

test Machiavelli’s consistency. For example, Skinner finds that Machiavelli’s notion of virtú

in The Prince fits the Discourses; the only change is that the latter text characterizes virtú not

only in individual but also collective terms, i.e. virtú of citizens, not just leaders (Skinner

1981: 35, 53-4). In effect, Skinner has taken a term which Machiavelli uses many times in

two texts without defining it, inferred a plausible meaning that fits one text, and slightly

modified the definition to fit it to another text. He has reconstructed Machiavelli, filling in

gaps and resolving ambiguities to better understand each text and their connections.

I now turn from working out what authors mean, to working out what the ideas mean,

i.e. what they amount to, and in particular, how well they work. These aims need not be

alternatives, as when we ask if Machiavelli’s language of virtú is consistent, or if Mill has a

single notion of ‘harm’.

For many scholars, especially in politics and philosophy departments, seeing how

well authors’ ideas work is more important than recovering authors’ meanings. After all,

many writers we study are intellectually brilliant and made bold claims about their brilliance.

Yet their reasoning is almost always incomplete or flawed, and we must sometimes

intentionally move beyond their own understandings to get their arguments to work.

A fine example is Martinich’s careful reconstruction of Hobbes, sometimes with tools

available to Hobbes (e.g. 2005: 101-4), sometimes with modern notions and distinctions (e.g.

2005: 153-72). Martinich sets out Hobbes’s steps, then modifies and adds steps as needed, to

see if Hobbes’s conclusions then follow. Martinich is simply trying to finish what Hobbes

started. So, when testing logical arguments, be prepared to specify the steps in an

argument and what is needed to improve it.

Some historians object to reworking historical authors like this (e.g. Tuck 2007: 69),

but their criticisms hold less weight when we recognize, first, that reconstruction can help us

understand authors better (albeit not via the kind of understanding that historians are

primarily interested in), and second, that every scholar reconstructs, sometimes in major

ways, sometimes in minor ways. Skinner (2002b: 217, 235) does something similar in

showing how to ‘rescue’ Hobbes’s consistency with minor changes to conflicting statements.


6. Theoretical and normative perspectives

Susan Okin’s feminist perspective lets her spot presuppositions and implications in

many authors, including those claiming to be gender-neutral (1989: 10-13, 44-60, 80-7, 90-

7). C.B. Macpherson’s partly Marxist perspective helps him see Hobbes’s conscious or

unconscious assumptions about ‘possessive individualism’ and other capitalist traits (1962: 4-

5, 26-9, 37-40, 46, 59-68, 78-80, 84-106; see Townshend 1999 for a defence of Macpherson

against common complaints).

These are two examples of theoretical and normative perspectives that are often

presented as essentially different ‘schools’ or ‘approaches’, as with Ball’s comparison of

Marxist, totalitarian, psychoanalytic, feminist, Straussian and postmodernist interpretations

(Ball 2004: 19-27). Yet in a very important sense, these analysts are doing the same kind of

thing: using theories and norms to develop empirical hypotheses or conceptual distinctions

which help us uncover assumptions and implications.

Seen like this, there are far more perspectives than are usually mentioned. Even Ball’s

(2004; 2011) fairly extensive lists could limit us from thinking about other insightful

approaches. Here are some examples. Skinner’s republican perspective alerts him to

republican ideas often neglected in Machiavelli (Skinner 1990: 300-306). John McCormick’s

democratic perspective highlights democratic features in Machiavelli overlooked in the

republican readings of Skinner and others (2011: see especially 3, 7-11 for the critique of

republican interpretations). Hayek’s libertarian/classical liberal perspective uncovers more

individualism in Burke than other writers saw (1948: 4-8, 13, 24). Terrell Carver’s gender

perspective reveals assumptions about men passed over by feminist scholars concentrating on

assumptions about women (2004). David Armitage’s international perspective pinpoints oft-

overlooked issues in Hobbes and Locke (2013: 62-7, 79-85). Jon Elster’s analytical approach,

combining ideas such as methodological individualism and rational choice theory, generates

new insights about Marx (Elster 1985: see especially 3-48 on Elster’s analytical tools).

Martin Hollis’s game-theoretic approach provides powerful insights into Hobbes, Hume,

Smith, Kant and others (1998).

A contribution I find especially interesting and troubling is the race/ethnicity

perspective of Robert Bernasconi, who uncovers assumptions about race in Locke, Kant,

Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche and others (2003: 14-20; 2010: 500-504, 510-1, 515-6), in the same

way that feminist scholars reveal assumptions about women. Bernasconi states that ‘Western


philosophy has been and is still largely in denial about its racism’ (Bernasconi 2003: 14),

challenging those of us who have missed these writers’ explicit or implicit racism, or passed

over it in silence in our writing and teaching.

Perspectives like this can be incredibly powerful: this helps explain why we keep

seeing new things in old texts. But does it really help to talk about different lenses as different

‘schools of thought’ or different ‘approaches’? Throughout this chapter I have tried to ask

what is really going on in our interpretations. And in my view, theoretical and normative

perspectives are just a fancy way of saying: ‘I am approaching this text with one or more

hypotheses or distinctions: what can I now see?’

I do not mean to disparage this kind of research in the slightest: do not

underestimate the insights you can get by applying an empirical hypothesis or

conceptual distinction from an existing theoretical/normative perspective or elsewhere.

You will always find something that previous interpretations have overlooked.

You do not even need to uphold a perspective to take advantage of its insights. You

don’t have to be a feminist to uncover authors’ gender presuppositions, a republican to ask if

authors uphold freedom as non-domination, or a poststructuralist to apply Foucault’s

distinction between a governmentality of politiques and a governmentality of économistes

(Foucault 2009: lectures 4, 5, 8, 13). You don’t have to be a Marxist to notice authors’

socioeconomic and gender presuppositions. Indeed, it may help not to be a Marxist, because

if you are a Marxist you might be inclined towards certain conclusions, and that can infect

your reading of texts.

Two related dangers must thus be noted. The first danger is that a perspective leads

you to misread a text, read too much into it, or overlook relevant passages – a persistent

criticism of scholars from several different perspectives (Ball 2004: 21-3). Arthur Melzer

shows that most scholars dislike the idea of esoteric writing and have missed ample evidence

of esotericism (2014: especially 13-24, 137-42, 299-317). Yet he himself is so keen to show

Rousseau’s sympathies for esotericism that he sidesteps Rousseau’s critical comments about

esotericism (2014: 163). Meanwhile, Robin Douglass (2015: 283) argues that Skinner’s

‘preoccupation’ with Hobbes’s republican context makes him ‘misconstrue’ Hobbes’s

arguments: Skinner’s reading ‘conceals more than it reveals about [Hobbes’s] battle with

republicanism’. If one has a normative axe to grind, one often ends up chopping off important

parts of texts. Be attentive to potential theoretical/normative biases: try to be impartial.

If your perspective gives you an expectation about an author’s influences or motives, it

is only an expectation – a hypothesis – never a certainty.


The second danger is that you end up as an unthinking mouthpiece for flawed ideas.

Don’t just apply a perspective: think about testing it too. For example, many scholars

apply Berlin’s flawed distinction between negative and positive liberty without mentioning

its inadequacies. Showing a perspective’s shortfalls, or refining and improving it, makes your

work more important. For example, Anne Brunon-Ernst (2012) not only applies Foucault’s

ideas of biopolitics to Bentham, but criticizes and amends Foucault’s ideas in the process. A

study that would primarily interest some Bentham and Foucault scholars now becomes

important for many Foucault scholars, indeed for anyone seeking to apply Foucault’s

distinctions elsewhere. Independence of mind about perspectives you apply can expand your

audience.

Both of the dangers I have just noted apply to any interpretation: we all interpret texts

through lenses of some kind. So, try to be aware, if you can, of perspectives that already

influence your interpretations. In my ongoing Hobbes work, I tried to chart all of Hobbes’s

practical proposals for averting a state of nature. Yet my mindset was not attuned to

international issues, and after reading David Armitage’s (2013) work on international

perspectives, I found internationally-oriented proposals in Hobbes that I had previously

missed. We all have such biases. Even favouring a particular interpretation can have this

effect: for example, if you suspect that an author is more consistent than others believe, part

of you will want this to be the case, potentially infecting your interpretation.

7. Reading between and outside the lines

This chapter has regularly challenged our inherited categories. The same applies to

those who see ‘reading between the lines’ as an essentially different approach. Despite claims

that some scholars take a purely literal approach (Melzer 2014: 112-4, 207, 368), we never

restrict ourselves to the actual words alone: all communication and all textual interpretation

involves reading between the lines, as section 5 showed.

So too with contextualist interpretation. For example, ‘the fact that Il Principe was in

part intended as an attack on the morality embodied in humanist advice-books to princes

cannot be discovered by attending to Machiavelli’s text, since this is not a fact contained in

the text’ (Skinner 2002a: 143). In effect, when Machiavelli discusses virtú, we continually

read ‘unlike the views of my contemporaries’ into the text. This helps us understand

Machiavelli better.


Something similar applies when writers are ironic or insincere. Taken literally,

Defoe’s The Shortest-Way With the Dissenters argues that dissenters should be executed. But

Defoe was writing ironically: his implicit argument is for toleration, not persecution (Skinner

2002a: 111-2). To conclude that Defoe meant to defend persecution would be to confuse

what the words say and what Defoe meant by them. In effect, we repeatedly read ‘only a fool

would argue that’ between the lines of Defoe’s text.

Likewise, many great historical authors were religiously heretical, but few could

imply this publicly. We can doubt the sincerity of many of their comments on religion, but

we can sometimes read between the lines and infer what they really thought (e.g. Schotte

2015). So, remember that authors may have had ulterior motives, ironic intentions or

controversial views that they did not say in print.

But great care needs to be taken here: without sensible guidelines it is easy to read

things into texts which are not warranted. There is some evidence that Machiavelli wrote The

Prince insincerely, trying to ‘trap the prince’ with bad advice to get the Medici into

difficulties, but there is much more evidence that Machiavelli was not doing this (Langton

1987). We should, where possible, consider plausible alternatives: we can easily reach

implausible conclusions if we only look for evidence for that conclusion. Every reader of this

chapter, and certainly its author, has fallen short here. Even contextualist reading-between-

the-lines can do so, as section 2 noted.

The greatest care is needed when asking if authors esoterically hid messages in their

writings which they wanted cunning readers to spot. There is little doubt that some authors

wrote this way, as some scholars recognize (Patterson 1991). But many such interpretations

almost certainly over-reach themselves, with highly questionable use of evidence and weak

methodology (Blau 2012).

Careful readers will note that this section has not yet mentioned the term ‘Straussian’.

From the 1940s on, Leo Strauss and his followers achieved (in)fame with esoteric

interpretations of writers like Plato, Machiavelli, Rousseau and Nietzsche. But those who

read between the lines may have seen what I now state explicitly: we must not equate

‘esoteric’ and ‘Straussian’ interpretation. There is nothing wrong with esoteric interpretation,

but much wrong with Straussian esoteric interpretation, due not to its esotericism but its

naive and flawed methodology (Blau 2012). Unfortunately, our methodological lexicon has

clouded the issue: I have thus argued that we should replace the language and literature of

hermeneutics with the language and literature of hypotheses (Blau 2015b). It is misleading to

say that Strauss has a different hermeneutic or particular techniques of reading texts: he has


hypotheses about the particular ways that authors hid messages. Straussianism is not a

method but a hypothesis – a hypothesis which its proponents have not tested well because

they typically ‘mistake an expectation for a presumption’ (Bevir 1999: 147). Fortunately,

Melzer’s superb practical advice to Straussians (2014: 288-99; see also 323-4) now warns

them not to be too hasty to infer esotericism.

The excesses of Straussian interpretation have helped and hindered the cause of

esoteric interpretation. They have helped it, by highlighting a largely forgotten kind of

writing and offering some evidence about esoteric techniques. But they have hindered it,

giving esoteric interpretation a bad name (‘Straussian’) through methodologically flawed

over-interpretations that have far simpler explanations (Blau 2012: 147-50). Reading

between the lines, like any empirical interpretation, is only a hypothesis. One of the great

tragedies of 20th century methodologies of textual interpretation was their focus on

supposedly separate approaches and their failure to provide universal principles for testing

hypotheses.

8. Universal principles of good practice

I now summarize core principles which apply to all textual interpreters, whatever

categories we identify with. It doesn’t matter if you see yourself as a Skinnerite, a Straussian

or a Marxist: if you just look for evidence that fits your expectations and don’t consider

alternative interpretations, you are asking for trouble.

The underlying principles are uncertainty and under-determination: no empirical

claims about texts can be known for certain, and the same evidence can always be read

differently. We even disagree about what counts as evidence. Uncertainty and under-

determination are more fundamental than ‘approaches’ like Cambridge-School or Straussian

readings: claims about the relevance of a particular context or the esoteric techniques being

used can only ever be hypotheses, and when hypotheses need to be tested, uncertainty and

under-determination are omnipresent. I outline and apply these principles in more depth

elsewhere (Blau 2011; 2012; 2015c; 2015d).

Uncertainty has two main implications for what we do. First, be careful of over-

confident claims. Try not to talk of ‘proving’ anything, and where relevant, try to indicate

how confident you are in your findings. There are differences between saying ‘Hobbes


wrote Leviathan’, which we have no good reason to doubt; ‘Hobbes preferred monarchy to

democracy’, an entirely reasonable inference to draw from his texts; ‘Hobbes was probably

responding to republicans’, a plausible but less certain inference; and ‘there is evidence both

for Hobbes being an atheist and for his being a believer, but I find the evidence for the latter

stronger than the evidence for the former’, a safe stance given the highly contestable

evidence. Do not see yourself as reporting facts, but as reporting on how confident you

are in your inferences. However stylistically ugly you find this, you may need to put the

focus on you, not on the text/author, e.g. ‘I suspect that Hobbes meant P’, ‘Hobbes could

have meant P or Q, but I find P likelier’, and so on (Blau 2011: 362-8).

Second, and more important, uncertainty often requires us to test empirical claims to

see how plausible they look. Under-determination kicks in here, so your simplest and best

test of a claim is to see if it fits the evidence better than plausible alternatives .

Simplifying somewhat, you should consider what fits your interpretation and what does not,

and also what fits alternative interpretations and what does not. Interpretation is relative.

The secondary literature is usually a good source of alternative interpretations.

Reading other scholarship is not something we do as an offering to the footnote gods: we do

it because we know that other scholars might read things differently or see things we have

missed. Critically comparing interpretations is both defence and offense, justifying one’s

account by showing its superiority to other accounts (if space permits). But do not assume

that your initial expectations will endure. Think against yourself, don’t be too attached

to your interpretations, and change your mind if needs be.

A powerful test can be to triangulate evidence by seeing if textual, contextual,

philosophical and motivational evidence imply the same conclusions. Textual and

contextual evidence have been amply discussed above. Philosophical evidence refers to such

things as the implications of arguments, or the consistency of two ideas. Might the

implications of Rousseau’s comments of liberty imply his motivations – are his definitions

implicitly undermining the positions of other authors? Do the implications of his comments

on civil and moral freedom help us understand which, if either, is involved in ‘forced to be

free’? Do his comments on conscience/intuition in Emile (e.g. book 4, p. 286) explain how

citizens discover the general will (TSC 4.1.6: 122)?

Motivational evidence means inferences about authors’ motivations, which can be

used as further evidence in our investigations. For example, book 1 of the Republic uses

Socrates’s style of argument, ‘elenchus’, but books 2-10 use Plato’s own approach,

‘dialectic’: perhaps Plato was subtly showing Socrates’s limitations (Reeve 1988: 3-24). But


there are other possibilities (e.g. that the text was written at different times) and further

investigation would help. Note that we cannot see motivations: we only infer them from

textual, contextual and/or philosophical evidence.

Ideally we want as much evidence as we can get. Imagine that textual and

philosophical analysis gives you a possible solution to Mill’s confusing comments about

offence (see section 5). Think about also seeking contextual evidence about a controversy at

the time which might explain Mill’s comments (e.g. a parliamentary debate about drug-taking

or masturbation in public). Finding a link between Mill and such a controversy would

strengthen your inferences, but not finding one would not weaken your claims, as Mill might

plausibly have commented on it anyway.

Or perhaps you are a historian who has found precisely such a contextual event.

Before concluding that this is the right explanation, check that it fits philosophically with the

relevant passages in Mill (without expecting him to be fully consistent). If it does, your

conclusions would be strengthened; if not, it could cause a rethink. For more details of this

use of ‘observable implications’ to test your ideas, see Blau (2012: 152; 2015b: section 3,

drawing on the hypothesis-testing approach of Van Evera 1997: 31-2).

Alas, our inherited disciplinary and methodological categories often constrain what

we do: seeing ourselves as contextualists or philosophers can deflect us from important

evidence. True, we all have certain skills, and while this is itself partly a function of

disciplinary training, some people just are better at abstract philosophizing or at concrete

archival research. But when detailed historical research is beyond a political theorist or

philosopher, she can consult historical research or talk to historians, and when philosophical

issues are too hard for a historian to tackle herself, she could discuss them with a political

theorist or philosopher. Co-authorship is another solution. Ultimately, though, we all have

different skills, and if someone neglects important evidence, others can fill this in and test the

argument: triangulation can be communal.

Beware the omnipresent danger of circularity: we always interpret evidence in

the light of other assumptions and can never fully escape such ‘theory-ladennness’ (Brewer

and Lambert 2001; Bevir 1999: 92-3). I see Skinner’s Hobbes and Republican Liberty (2008)

as a brilliant piece of triangulation, yet its republican perspective arguably undermines its

interpretations, as section 6 noted. Good methods do not ensure right answers.

My focus on evidence suggests that we must make clear what our evidence is. Some

scholars follow the bad academic convention of giving page numbers only for quotations but

not for ideas. This can facilitate caricatures. Yet we should not robotically give page numbers


where there are many different editions and translations, e.g. of Rousseau’s Social Contract,

where further details are needed. The principle is thus: make clear what your evidence is so

that others can easily follow it up and test your claims.

Another aspect of clarity involves interpretation which is both empirical and

conceptual. Strictly speaking this is always the case (Skinner 2002a, 16, 45; Bevir 1999: 98).

But sometimes conceptualization is especially important, as when we ask how ‘modern’

Machiavelli was or how ‘liberal’ Rousseau was. In such cases, conceptual clarity is vital.

Richard Tuck’s (2004) discussion of Hobbes’s ‘utopianism’ does not say what ‘utopian’

means. Virginia Sapiro, by contrast, is far clearer about Wollstonecraft’s ‘feminism’ (1992:

258-9). When analysis is partly conceptual and partly empirical, try to define key

conceptual terms. Rehfeld’s chapter in this volume will help here.

The above terms are anachronistic. Care is needed here, as section 3 noted. For

example, Michael Losonsky (2001: 53-4) talks of ‘deliberative reason’, ‘passionate

reasoning’ and ‘reasoned deliberation’ in Hobbes. These terms misconstrue Hobbes’s

position (Blau 2015: section 6). By contrast, David Wootton asks how democratic the

Levellers were by combining careful analysis of their ideas with helpful distinctions (1992:

71-80). Skinner finds such anachronisms ‘pointless’ (2002c: 58), but I suspect that this view

reflects what can happen when we are constrained by a single notion of meaning and a single

notion of understanding. This chapter has sought to liberate us from these constraints.

9. Conclusion

This chapter has offered how-to guidance largely absent from the existing

methodological literature, a gap that reflects the literature’s tendency to discuss different

approaches and schools of thought without also emphasizing unifying principles of good

interpretation. I do not mean to be too dismissive of the existing methodological literature,

and would especially encourage novice textual interpreters to familiarize themselves with

Skinner’s theorizing. But equally important are his deeply impressive substantive

interpretations. And whether or not this chapter has given you the guidance you need, my

final suggestion is thus to see methodology as something that you do not learn merely

from methodological writings. Reflect also on what is good and less good in actual,

substantive interpretations, and infer principles of good practice from that.


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