Rhetoric, Politics, and Hobbes

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Over the past few decades a quiet but nonetheless significant transformation has occurred in the history of political thought and contemporary political theory. In contrast to the work that dominated the field during most of the twentieth century, recent scholars have displayed a growing interest not just in the languages of political thought, but in the rhetorical dimensions of political discourse. Among scholars of contemporary political theory, the surge of interest in rhetoric is most clearly evident in recent discussions of deliberative democracy, where a series of lively debates have emerged regarding the proper role and scope of rhetoric in democratic deliberation. Among historians of political thought, interest in rhetoric has also increased sharply. Indeed, since the 1970s scholars have launched a major reassessment of the role of rhetoric in the history of political theory. Nowhere, however, has interest in the rhetorical dimension of texts in the history of political thought been stronger than in the recent work of Hobbes scholars. Indeed, since the publication of David Johnston’s The Rhetoric of Leviathan in 1986, nearly a dozen books—almost all on leading academic presses—and dozens of articles have been published on the broad topic of Hobbes and rhetoric. Recent trends indicate that this interest has, if anything, only accelerated.

This panel addresses a range of pertinent questions about the rhetorical dimensions of Hobbes’s thought and the significance of the rhetorical turn in Hobbes studies and, to a lesser degree, political theory. The aim is to examine this much discussed and debated development in Hobbes studies and the history of political thought more generally. The four papers each take up important issues that have emerged in recent scholarship on Hobbes and rhetoric. Markku Peltonen, an important early modern historian and leading scholar of the thought of Francis Bacon, examines these questions through an analysis of Hobbes’s and Francis Bacon’s respective views of rhetoric and its possible impact on the outbreaks of rebellion and ultimately civil war I 1642. Ted Miller’s paper examines questions of rhetoric and politics in Hobbes though a broader interpretive lens. Placing recent work on Hobbes and rhetoric in their intellectual and political contexts, Miller is interested in exploring what scholars are doing in their efforts to reconnect Hobbes to rhetorical traditions. Do they view these efforts as attempts to re-politicize Hobbes, thereby rescuing him from earlier scholarship that neglected these aspects of his thought and also yielded a much tamer vision of Hobbes political theory. And if these earlier views of Hobbes were ultimately projections, then what are these more recent readings of Hobbes? Tracy Strong’s paper addresses the important issue of visual rhetoric and the rhetoric of theatricalization in Hobbes’s political thought, focusing on the frontispiece of Leviathan. This paper will extend Strong's important earlier work on the Leviathan frontispiece. Finally, Keith Topper’s paper examines post-war Hobbes scholarship as a body of evidence for undertaking a broader assessment of the value and limitations of the rhetorical turn. Examining two interpretive approaches that have exerted great influence with post-war Hobbes studies—one which displays a “resistance to rhetoric” and one which foregrounds the rhetorical dimensions of Hobbes’s thought—Topper locates the value and limitations of each approach.

Sub Unit

• Division 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Individual Presentations

• Reunion, Collision, and Reflection: Hobbes, Rhetoric and Politics in Contexts - Ted H. Miller, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

• Hobbes and the Rhetoric of Theatricalization: Sovereignty and Spectacle - Tracy B. Strong, University of Southhampton

• Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and the Causes of the English Civil War - Markku Peltonen, University of Helsinki

• The Rhetoric Question in Hobbes - Keith Topper, University of California, Irvine

Chair

• Alison McQueen Stanford University

Discussants

• Nancy J. Hirschmann The University of Pennsylvania

• Kinch Hoekstra University of California, Berkeley