Martyn P. Thompson – författare

Originally published in 1987. This book analyses what Englishmen understood by the term contract in political discussions during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It provides evidence for reconsidering conventional accounts of the relationships between political ideas, groups and practices of the period. But also suggests cause for examining the general history of modern European contract theory. It considers contract as a term appearing in a spectrum of works from philosophical treatise to sermons and polemical pamphlets. Looking at the various vocabularies relating to contractualist ideas, the author suggests that standard histories of social contract theory and particular histories of English political thought during this unstable period have misrepresented the meaning of the term contract as a key term in political argument. He shows that there were in fact three different categories of contract theory but allows that the various kinds of contractualism did share certain broad features. This study of a crucial age in the history of appeals to contract in political argument will be of interest to political philosophers and historians.

Originally published in 1987. This book analyses what Englishmen understood by the term contract in political discussions during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It provides evidence for reconsidering conventional accounts of the relationships between political ideas, groups and practices of the period. But also suggests cause for examining the general history of modern European contract theory. It considers contract as a term appearing in a spectrum of works from philosophical treatise to sermons and polemical pamphlets. Looking at the various vocabularies relating to contractualist ideas, the author suggests that standard histories of social contract theory and particular histories of English political thought during this unstable period have misrepresented the meaning of the term contract as a key term in political argument. He shows that there were in fact three different categories of contract theory but allows that the various kinds of contractualism did share certain broad features. This study of a crucial age in the history of appeals to contract in political argument will be of interest to political philosophers and historians.

This book is a critique of Cambridge School Historical Contextualism as the currently dominant mode of history of political thought, drawing upon Michael Oakeshott’s analysis of the logic of historical enquiry. While acknowledging that the early Cambridge School work represented a considerable advance towards genuinely historical histories of political thought, this work identifies two major historiographical problems that have become increasingly acute. The first is general: an insufficiently rigorous understanding of the key concept of "pastness" necessarily presupposed in historical enquiry of all kinds. The second is specific to histories of political thought: a failure to do justice to the varieties of past political thinking, especially differences between ideology and philosophy. In addressing these problems, the author offers a comprehensive account of the history of political thought that establishes the parameters not just of histories of ideological thinking but also of the much disputed character of histories of political philosophy. Since rethinking history of political thought in Oakeshottian terms requires resisting current pressures to turn history into the servant of currently felt needs, the book offers a sustained defence of the cultural value of modernist historical enquiry against its opponents. An important work for political theorists, historians of political thought and those researching intellectual history, the philosophy of history and proposed new directions in contemporary historical studies.

This book is a critique of Cambridge School Historical Contextualism as the currently dominant mode of history of political thought, drawing upon Michael Oakeshott’s analysis of the logic of historical enquiry. While acknowledging that the early Cambridge School work represented a considerable advance towards genuinely historical histories of political thought, this work identifies two major historiographical problems that have become increasingly acute. The first is general: an insufficiently rigorous understanding of the key concept of "pastness" necessarily presupposed in historical enquiry of all kinds. The second is specific to histories of political thought: a failure to do justice to the varieties of past political thinking, especially differences between ideology and philosophy. In addressing these problems, the author offers a comprehensive account of the history of political thought that establishes the parameters not just of histories of ideological thinking but also of the much disputed character of histories of political philosophy. Since rethinking history of political thought in Oakeshottian terms requires resisting current pressures to turn history into the servant of currently felt needs, the book offers a sustained defence of the cultural value of modernist historical enquiry against its opponents. An important work for political theorists, historians of political thought and those researching intellectual history, the philosophy of history and proposed new directions in contemporary historical studies.

Das »Jahrbuch Politisches Denken« ist den elementaren Fragen der Politik gewidmet; es versammelt Beiträge aus allen Bereichen des politischen Lebens und will sowohl den Fachwissenschaftler als auch politisch interessierte Bürgerinnen und Bürger gewinnen. Ab 1997 ist das »Jahrbuch Politisches Denken« jeweils einem aktuellen Schwerpunktthema gewidmet. Die Beiträge des Jahrbuchs 1998 stehen unter dem Titel »Politik und Rhetorik«. Aus dem Inhalt: Hans Maier: Die Nachkriegszeit im Spiegel der Sprache - Theo Stammen: Politische Rhetorik in der Renaissance - Otto Dann: Schiller und die Rhetorik - Peter Weber-Schäfer: Rhetorik in der Antike - Volker Gerhardt: Menschenrecht und Rhetorik

Das »Jahrbuch Politisches Denken« ist den elementaren Fragen der Politik gewidmet; es versammelt Beiträge aus allen Bereichen des politischen Lebens und will sowohl Fachwissenschaftler/innen als auch politisch interessierte Bürgerinnen und Bürger gewinnen.

Das Jahrbuch Politisches Denken ist den elementaren Fragen der Politik gewidmet; es versammelt Beiträge aus allen Bereichen des politischen Lebens und will sowohl Fachwissenschaftler/innen als auch politisch interessierte Bürgerinnen und Bürger gewinnen. Seit 1997 ist das Jahrbuch Politisches Denken jeweils einem aktuellen Schwerpunktthema gewidmet. Das Jahrbuch 2001 bietet Beiträge zur politischen Philosophie Hannah Arendts, zum aktuellen Konflikt im Kosovo und zur Geschichte des politischen Denkens in der Neuzeit.

Das »Jahrbuch Politisches Denken« ist den elementaren Fragen der Politik gewidmet; es versammelt Beiträge aus allen Bereichen des politischen Lebens und will sowohl Fachwissenschaftler/innen als auch politisch interessierte Bürgerinnen und Bürger gewinnen.