Meaning and understanding in intellectual history

Abstract

This article responds to Quentin Skinner’s chapter ‘Hobbes and the Humanist Frontispiece’ in his book From Humanism to Hobbes: Studies in Rhetoric and Politics by raising methodological questions concerning meaning and understanding in the study of intellectual history. It focuses on three methodological issues pertaining to the examination of visual contexts in intellectual history, and specifically pertaining to the study of early modern European print culture. First, it raises the question of how one should parse instances of co-authorship – especially those in which one of the purported authors of a print is also responsible for producing a related text. When multiple hands are involved in the making of an image that accompanies a written text authored by one of these hands, how does this impact the ways in which we should describe, explain, and interpret the image under consideration? Second, the article raises questions concerning the practice of editing early modern prints for interpretive purposes. It asks whether and when historians working today should and should not try to look beyond the lines printed on the page. Third, it re-examines the slippery problem of influence and what the conditions of influence are when dealing with political iconography.

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