History and the Interpretation of Texts TERENCE BALL Hermeneutics - the art of interpretation - takes its name from Hermes. In Greek mythology Hermes was the winged-foot messenger of the gods and something of a trickster to boot. Like the Sphinx and the Oracle at Delphi, he relayed messages from. the gods in an encoded and allusive way, typically in the form of riddles, leaving itt his human hearers to interpret the meaning and significance of any message (Palmer, 1969: 13). Sometimes they got it tight, and sometimes not — often with disastrous results Students of political theory do not attempt to decode and interpret the meaning of messages of divine origin. But we do, of necessity, attempt to understand messages sent to us by long-dead and. all-too-human thinkers whose works we read and ponder and mine for meaning, Thus political theory isin important ways a backward-looking enterprise. A very considerable part of its subject-matter is its ‘own history, which consists of classic works from Plato onward. In this respect political theory is quite unlike (say) physies. One ean be a very fine physi- cist without ever having studied the history of physics or having read Aristotle’s Physics or the Tonian nature philosophers or, for that matter, the ‘works of Galileo and Newton, The same cannot be said of political theory. A student of political theory ‘must have read, reread and reflected upon the works of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Mill and many others if she is to ‘be competent in her chosen vocation, But there is more than one way to read, interpret, ‘and understand the works that comprise the canon — ‘changing and contested as itis - of political theory ‘My aim in this chapter is to say something about the variety and diversity of approaches to the interpre- tation of texts in political theory. I shall begin by noting that interpretation is not an option but a necessity for the meaning-seeking creatures that we are. Next I shall sketch briefly the chief tenets of various ‘schools’ of (or, less formally, approaches 10) interpretation ~ Marxian, ‘totalitarian’, Freudian, feminist, Straussian, new historical, and postmod- ‘mist ~ and the interpretive controversies between ‘and among them, Along the way I shall supply sev- ‘ral cautionary tales about how not to interpret par- ticular passages from important thinkers. And finally 1 conclude by presenting and defending my ‘own ‘pluralistic’ and ‘problem-driven” approach to the interpretation of texts in political theory. I want throughout to emphasize two points in particular: ‘that not all interpretations are equally valid or valu- able; and that interpretations are rationally criticiz- able and corrigibe, ‘THE INDISPENSABILITY OF INTERPRETATION Interpretation comes with the territory of being ‘human. It is an activity from which humans cannot escape, Our prehistoric ancestors interpreted the ‘meaning of animal entrails, omens and other signs that might make their world more intelligible and perhaps portend their future. They, like modern ‘meteorologists, attempted to forecast the weather by looking at clouds and observing the behaviour of | birds and other creatures, With the coming of liter acy came the primacy of the written over the spoken. ‘word. Religious people, then as now, interpret the ‘meaning of sacred scripture. Judges, lawyers and ordinary citizens read and interpret constitutions and other texts. And students of political theory read ~ and adjudicate among rival interpretations of — texts in political theory.History and the Interpretation of Texts 19 How one interprets the meaning of any text has implications for what one does with it. Hermeneutics can be, and often is, a deadly serious ~ and some- times simply deadly ~ business (Ball, 1987). If you doubt it, you need only think of how Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition interpreted the Bible, or Lenin and Stalin (not to mention Mao and Pol Pot) the works of Marx, ot Hitler and the Nazis the writ- ings of Nietzsche, or Osama bin Laden and Islamic fundamentalists the Koran, to sce what camage can result from interpretations of texts taken to be foun- dational for mass movements. Its therefore impor- tant for students of political theory to treat the texts they study not as sacred seripture, but as the handi- work of human beings who, although fallible, have ‘much to teach their critical readers, ‘The vocation of political theory is in large part defined by its perennial fascination with and atten- tion to ‘classic’ works. Each generation reads them anew and from their own vantage point. These authors and their works comprise an important aspect of our politcal tradition, which we renew and enrich by reading, reflecting upon and criticizing these works, And yet to read and attempt to under- stand a work written a long time ago, perhaps in a different language, by an author whose mentalité differs remarkably from our own, is a daunting task. The reader finds herself in a position akin to that of an anthropologist studying an alien culture (Rorty, Schneewind and Skinner, 1984: 67), As readers of ‘works by Plato and other long-dead authors, we find ourselves in an alien age or culture with whose con+ cepts, categories, customs, and practices we are largely unfamiliar. In such situations we are often at loss to know what is being said, much less why it is being said or what its meaning may be, We there- fore need a ‘translation’ ~ not only of the words of the text but of its meaning. A good translation or interpretation is one that diminishes the strangeness of the text, making it more familiar and accessible to an otherwise puzzled or perplexed observer. The artifacts or texts produced in political cultures pre- ceding and differing from our own do not readily reveal their meanings even to the most careful reader. To read a text ‘over and over again’, as some (cg. Plamenatz, 1963: |, x) advise, is no doubt ne essary. But it is hardly sufficient to enable us to arrive at anything like an adequate understanding of what (say) Plato meant by advocating the use of ‘noble lies’ or what Machiavelli meant by compar- ing “fortune” (fortuna) to @ woman who must be beaten and bullied. To try to make sense of such puzzling terms and specch acts requires that we Interpret their meaning. There is no understanding without interpretation, and no interpretation without the possibility of multiple (mis)understandings, Nor is there a neutral standpoint or Archimedean, point from which to interpret and appraise any text, lassie ot otherwise, All interpretation implies, and ‘originates in, some vantage point or standpoint, Every interpretation, in short, implies an interest that provides the ground for and possibility of an interpretation — a standpoint from which inquiry ‘can begin and interpretation proceed. These inter ests are, moreover, multiple and varied. One’s interests can be contemporary: what (for example) ‘can Mil stil teach us about liberty? Or they may be ‘more historical: why did Mill's arguments in On Liberty take the form they did? Who were Mill's ‘main targets and his intended audience? Or one's interests may be more narrowly linguistic or liter- ary: what metaphors did Mill employ, and with ‘what effect? Or one’s interests may be logical or philosophical: is Mill's argument in On Liberty log- ically consistent? Are there gaps or lacunae in the argument? Is the argument convincing? None of these interests necessarily excludes the others. But they do dictate what will count as a problem, what ‘constitutes an interesting ot important question, and ‘what method might be most appropriate and fruitful for answering such questions. One would not, for ‘example, assess the logical adequacy of Mill's argu- ment by examining the metaphors he uses. Nor ‘would one be able to answer questions posed from a historical perspective by looking only at the logi- cal structure of his argument, ‘What one’s guiding interests might be — and how ‘one goes about answering to them ~ is as likely as not to depend on the interpretive ‘school’ to which cone belongs. ‘SCHOOLS’ OF INTERPRETATION There are today a number of influential schools of, ‘or approaches to, interpretation. Each takes a dis” tinctive approach to the history of political thought, and each is highly critical of the others. Disputes between and among these schools are heated and often protracted. I want now to offer brief thumbnail sketches of several approaches to interpretation, Marxian Interpretation I begin by considering the Marxian approach to textual interpretation, Marx famously remarked that ‘the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas’ (Marx and Engels, 1947: 39), That is, the dominant or mainstream ideas of any cra are ‘those that serve the interests of the dominant class, largely by legitimating their pre-eminent position in society. So it comes as no surprise, Marxists say, that in slave-owning societies slavery is portrayed and widely regarded as normal and natural ‘Aristotle said so in fourth-century nc Greece, as20 Handbook of Political Theory did George Fitzhugh and other apologists. for American slavery before the Civil War. In capitalist societies the free market is portrayed in the main- stream media ~ books, mass-circulation magazines ‘and newspapers, television, movies — as the most normal, natural and efficient way to organize and run ‘an economy. Other alternatives, such as socialism, are always portrayed negatively, as abnormal, unnat= ural and inefficient. Ideas ~ including those to be found in works of politcal theory — combine to form, ‘@ more or less consistent set or system of ideas that ‘Marx calls an ‘ideology’, The point and purpose of any ideology is to lend legitimacy to the rule of the dominant class. Thus ideologies serve as smoke- sereens, hiding tawdry reality from a credulous public, and presenting a rosy ~ albeit false — picture Of a society that treats all its members fairly, that rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving, ‘and distributes valued goods in a just and equitable For a Marxist, then, the task of textual interpreta- tion is to get behind appearances, to uncover the reality they obscure, and to expose What Marx calls “the illusion of that epoch (1947: 30). This general approach, which is now sometimes called “the her~ ‘meneutics of suspicion’, takes no statement at face value but views it as a stratagem or move in a game whose point is to obscure reality and legitimize existing power relations. An adequate or good inter= pretation is one that performs the function of “ideology critique’ — that is, penetrates the veil of illusion and brings us closer to unveiling and expos- ing a heretofore hidden socio-economic reality. An ‘example may serve to illustrate what this might ‘mean in actual interpretive practice, ‘One particularly important Marxian interpretation ‘of key works in political theory is C. B. Macpherson’s The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (1962). By ‘possessive individualism’ Macpherson ‘means the political theory that serves to support and. legitimize those mainstays of moder capitalism - ‘economic self-interest and the institution of private property, He finds Hobbes and Locke, in particular, to be ideologists and apologists for capitalism avant la lettre. Thus Locke, for example, ceases to be the ‘good, grey, tolerant, protosdemocratic thinker we thought we knew, and becomes instead an extraor= dinarily clever propagandist for the then-emerging. ‘capitalist order, Macpherson makes much, for example, of Locke’s discussion of private property in the Second Treatise of Government (1690). Locke's problem was to justify the institution of private property, particularly since the Scriptures say that God had given the earth to all mankind. How then could any individual make any portion of that common property his own? Locke famously answers that one separates one’s own part from the ‘common by mixing one’s labour with it 27. Though the Harth, and all inferior Creatures be ‘common tall men, yet every Man has a Property in his ‘own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himset The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his hands, we may soy, are properly bis. Whatsoever th out ofthe State that Nature hath provided, and left tin, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it some~ thing tha is his own, end thereby makes it his Property. Even so, Locke adds, there remain restrictions on how much one might justifiably remove from the common store — namély, one may not take more than one can ‘use’ without its ‘spoiling’. You might make apples from a commonly owned tree your own property by expending your labour ~ by climb- ing the tree, picking the appies, sorting and washing thom, etc. ~ but you are entitled to take no more apples than you can use without their spoiling. ‘These “use” and ‘spoilage’ limitations are over come, however, with the introduction of money 47. And thus came in the use of Money, some lasting thing that Men might keep without spoiling, and that by ‘mutual consent Men would take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable Supports of Life. 448. And as different dogress of Industry were apt to give Men Possessions in diferent Proportions, so this Invention of Money gave them the apportunity to con- tinue to enlarge them Macpherson makes much of these passages, which he takes to represent a key juncture in Locke's jus- tification of capitalist accumulation and ever- greater inequalities of wealth (1962: 203-11, 233-5), Macpherson’s critics contend that itis any- thing but: that Locke was a devout Christian who hhad deep misgivings about money (the love of ‘which is said in the Scriptures to be ‘the root of all evil’); that the word Locke uses in paragraph 48 is ‘not ‘property’ — that whieh is properly and by right ‘your own — but ‘possession’ (which is mere fact ‘without moral or legal import: # thief may possess your wallet but it is not properly his, ic. his prop= erty); hence the most we may conclude is that ‘money, and therefore presumably capital itself, is “a human institution about whose moral status Locke felt deeply ambivalent” (Dunn, 1984: 40) ‘A Marxian approach to textual interpretation encounters a number of difficulties, among them the following. We have seen already that Marxists assume that the ruling ideas of an epoch are those that serve the interests of the ruling class; and since ‘most political thinkers have belonged to an edu- cated and literate elite, their ideas serve the ruling class. But then Marx and Engels (and Lenin, ‘Trotsky, Bukharin, Luks, and many other promi nent Marxists) have not belonged to the class of oppressed labourers but to a leamed and literateHistory and the Interpretation of Texts 2 elite, By Marxian lights their ideas should serve the interests of the ruling capitalist class, not those of the labouring proletariat. How can the ideas of these Marxists serve the interests of a class to which they do not belong? All attempts (by Marx and others) to answer this question — that there are some who through will or imellect transcend their ‘objective’ class basis, that the workers cannot theorize for themselves because they are afflicted with “false consciousness’ whilst middle-class intellectuals are not, ete, — are merely ad hoc rationalizations and are clearly unsatisfactory. Moreover, how Marxists can interpret all political theories, past and present, as ideological masks concealing and justifying ‘the domination of one class by another — and yet exempt their own theorizing as an exception to this rule ~ is not explained (or even explainable) in any satisac- tory way. And, not least, Marxian interpretations hhave a formulaic, cookie-cutter quality: the infer- preter has preset ideas about what she will find — namely ideological trickery or obfuscation in the service of the ruling class ~ and, presto, she finds it lurking in even the most innocent-sounding passages, ‘Totalitarian’ Interpretations The twentieth century saw the rise to power and prominence of various totalitarian regimes and ideologies, among which fascism and communism ‘were particularly prominent. One important and influential approach to textual interpretation views these ideologies as rooted in the thinking of earlier political theorists going as far back as Plato. These earlier theories, when put into modem political practice, allegedly produced Hitler and the Holocaust and Stalin and the Gulag. It was there- foro deemed important to detect and expose the philosophical ‘origins’ or ‘roots’ of modern totali- tarianism by rereading and reinterpreting earlier thinkers in Tight of the latter-day “fruits” of their theorizing. ‘Once one begins to look for proto-totalitarian themes and tendencies in carlier theorists, they seem to be everywhere, What is Plato's perfect republic, ruled by a philosopher-king who employs censorship and ‘noble lies", if not a blueprint for a Nazi regime ruled by an all-knowing Fidhrer, backed by propaganda and the Big Lie, or for @ Soviet-style communist utopia ruled by a Lenin or a Stalin? Much the same might be said about Machiavelli's ruthless prince or Hobbes’s all- ‘powerful Sovereign or Rousseau'sall-wise Legislator. Indeed, Rousseau's Social Contract has come in for special censure. Rousseau’s critics have viewed ‘him as a precursor of totalitarianism for four main reasons. The first is his notion of the General Will, which is “always right" and “cannot er’. The second is Rousseau’s chilling assertion that would-be dissi- dents must be ‘forced to be froe’. The third is the ‘ominous figure of the omniscient and god-like Legislator. The fourth and most frightening feature ‘of Rousseau's ideal republic is the eivil religion that supplies a religious rationale for its draconian laws ‘and institutions, Taken together, these four features constitute a bill of indictment of Rousseau’s totali- tarian intentions (Talmon, 1952; Barker, 1951; Crocker, 1968).' Other later thinkers ~ particularly Hegel and Marx - have been subjected to similar criticisms. ‘Among the most prominent representatives of the totalitarian’ approach to textual interpretation was the late Sir Karl Popper, whose The Open Society and Its Enemies (1963 [1945]) is the most sustained ‘and systematic attempt to trace the roots of modern totalitarianism to ideas advanced by ‘enemies’ of “the open society’ from Plato through to Marx. An Austrian Jew who fled from the Nazis and emi- grated to New Zealand in the 1930s, Popper regarded his research for and writing of The Open Society as his ‘war effort’ (1976: 115). It may be instructive to revisit Popper's Open Society to show how sincerely held present-day concerns can inform — or misinform — our interpretation of “classic” works in politcal theory. Let us choose from the preceding rogues” gallery a single example for closer examination: Hegel's remark in Philosophy of Right that ‘what is rational is actual and what is ‘actual is rational” (1952: 10), Popper quotes Hegel's remark in English transla- tion and then glosses it as follows: “Hegel main- tain{s) that everything that is reasonable must be real, and everything that i real must be reasonable,” Thus Hegel holds that “everything that is now real cr actual exists by necessity, and must be reason- able as well as good. (Particularly good is ... the ‘existing Prussian state)” (Popper, 1963: I, 41). The Prussian state of Hegel's time was an authoritarian police state that practised censorship, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment without due process of Taw. That state was real; therefore, in Hegel's view, that state was rational or reasonable and thus good. In this way, Popper claims, Hegel gave his philo- sophical blessing to the Prussian prototype of the ‘modern totalitarian state, and so must himself be accounted a ‘totalitarian’ thinker and apologist. “Hegel is, in short, an ‘enemy’ of the ‘open society" But is Hegel guilty as charged? The short answer is no, Let us see why. Here is Hegel's own state- ‘ment in the original German: “Was vernunftg ist, ddas ist witklich; und was wirklich ist, das ist ver- ‘nunftig." The closest English equivalent is: “What is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational.” Note that wirklich is translated not as ‘real” but as “actual’. In everyday German, as in English, there is22 Handbook of Political Theory ‘ordinarily no sharp distinction between ‘real’ and “actual”, Popper (whose first language was German) fails to note that Hegel was writing not in ordinary non-technical German but in a technical-philosophical idiom. He draws and maintains a sharp distinction between wirklich (actual) and reel (real). In Hegel's philosophical nomenclature an acorn (for ‘example) is real; but itis not actual until its poten- tial is fully actualized, that is, when it becomes a full-grown oak. In other words, Hegel uses wirklich to mean “fully actualized’; he contrasts ‘actual’ not with unreal, but with ‘potential’. Thus Hegel's (in)famous statement means something like, “What is rational is chat which fully actualizes its potential; ‘and that which fully actualizes its potential is ratio nal” This is far from being the sinister statement that Popper makes it out to be and which he takes to be evidence of Hegel's “totalitarian” tendencies.* ‘There is a larger hermeneutical lesson to be learned from Popper's (and many others") misread- ing of Hegel (and Plato, Rousseau, and other theo- rists). First, it is important to place statements in their proper context — conceptual-philosophical or ‘otherwise. In this instance that means taking note of how Hegel uses an apparently ordinary term in a non-ordinary or technical way. Second, one should beware of any interpreter who, like Popper, has a preset thesis that he then ‘proves’ by selectively ‘quoting and stitching together statements taken out, of their textual and linguistic context ~ a penchant Popper shares, ironically, with the Marxists he so detest, Psychoanalytic Interpretation In The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psycho- pathology of Everyday Life, and other works, Sigmund Freud famously argued that our actions are often motivated by wishes, desires, or fears of Which we are not consciously aware. Psycho- analytic interpretations, like Marxian ones, fall under the heading of “the hermeneuties of suspi- cion’, My apparently accidental slips ofthe tongue (or pen, for example, may reveal (0a trained psy choanalyst aspects of my ‘unconscious’ that are not ‘evident to me. So too with my dreams. Suppose I ‘dream that | am at bat in a baseball game, bottom of the ninth inning, with my team losing, all bases loaded, one ball and two strikes. Here comes the pitch. As I begin to swing, my bat suddenly tums rubbery and floppy, like one that a circus clown right swing. The ball whizzes past my ineffectual bat and I strike out, losing the game for my team, and bringing embarrassment and disgrace upon myself; How to interpret what I've dreamed? Well, if T were a baseball player who's afraid of eracking under pressure, the meaning of my dream would be pretty transparent. But, alas, I'm not a baseball player. I'm merely a 50-something male academic. ‘An analyst might interpret this dream as a fear of losing sexual potency, particularly when there are hhigh expectations and lots of pressure to ‘perform’. In this case, the bascball game is not a game and the limp bat is not a bat but a symbol standing for some- thing else ... Well, you get the idea.” ‘One can supply psychoanalytic’ interpretations not oly of dreams but ofall sorts of texts ~ including, those in political theory. This has been done in the case of Machiaveli (Pitkin, 1984), Edmund Burke (Kramnick, 1977), Martin Luther (Erikson, 1958) and Mahatma Gandhi (Erikson, 1969), among others. [ want to look, more particularly, at Bruce Mazlish’s (1975) psychoanalytic interpretation of themes in the work of John Stuart Mill. Millis most famous as the author of On Liberty (1859) in which he argues in favour of a very wide sphere of per sonal freedom to live one’s life as one wishes, with- out undue interference from others, no matter how well-meaning those others may be. Now as Mill tells usin his Autobiography, his stern Seots father James Mill did not permit his first-born son to live and act as he wished. Young John was not allowed to associate with other children, to play games, orto do anything except to read and be exactingly exam ined on books assigned by his father. The elder Mill's strict educational regimen was constructed and carried out with the best of intentions. This tightly regimented upbringing produced impressive results, but also took its toll. At age 20 John suf= fered a mental breakdown from which he recovered only slowly and in part through the reading of romantic poetry (chiefly Wordsworth and Coleridge) of which his father heartily disapproved. 3m that point on Mill ceased to be his father’s intellectual clone; he became a thinker with mind of bis own, and an author more prolific and more famous than his father Mazlish interprets On Liberty less as a work of liberal political theory than as a eri de coeur and a declaration of personal independence that is more autobiographical than analytical (pethaps that’s ‘what Nietzsche meant when he said that all theory is autobiography). This is not what Mill consciously intended; but he was led by unconscious desires to declare himself independent of his father and, some 23 years afer his father’s death, to justify his own independence and autonomy (Mazlish, 1975 ch, 15), As Freud theorized, sons subconsciously ‘wish to kill their fathers and possess their mothers this he called the ‘Oedipus complex’. Mill was locked in an Oedipal struggle with his father, whom he defeated in argument. What then of his relations with his mother? Her name was Hartet. Significantly, as Mazlish notes, Mill had an illicit affair with ‘married woman and mother named (you guessed it)History and the Interpretation of Texts 23 Harriet, who after her husband died, became Harriet Taylor Mill. From a psychoanalytic perspective, this is strong stuff, and Mazlish makes the most of it (1975: 283-93), ‘Although often suggestive and sometimes insightful, psychoanalytic interpretations face stiff evidentiary challenges, They are open to criticisms that they are speculative, impressionistic and non- falsifiable, and mistake coincidences for causes. To the claim that Mill symbolically defeated his father and married his mother, for example, a sceptic ‘might answer that “Harriet” was a very common woman's name in nineteenth-century Britain (indeed Mill had a younger sister named Harriet) and that Mill's affair with and marriage to Harriet Taylor was a coincidence of no importance, sym- bolic or otherwise. As for Mill’s motivation in writ- ing On Liberty, one can note that motivations are typically multiple and varied and while Mazlish may have correctly pinpointed one source, that is largely beside the point if one wishes to understand the aim and argument of On Liberty. Psycho- analytic interpretations direct our attention away from the text and toward its author: which is fine, if ‘what we wish to understand is the latter instead of the former. But textual interpretation is not the same thing as limning authorial motivation, Mill begins On Liberty by saying that ‘The subject of this Essay is ... the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.” He does not say ‘by fathers over sons’, To assert, as Mazlish docs, that the latter is the ‘real’, albeit hidden, meaning is merely to spec- ulate about Mill's motives, not to understand the argument of On Liberty. It is perhaps because of these evident shortcomings that psychoanalytic interpretations have by and large fallen out of favour among students of political theory.* Feminist Interpretation Feminism has had a profound and lasting impact on the way we study and interpret works in the history of political thought. A feminist perspective puts issues concerning gender at the forefront, and from that vantage point one views political theory anew and makes interesting — and sometimes appalling — discoveries [see further Chapter 21]. Such a sensi- bility injects a strong strain of scepticism into the study of ‘classic’ works. For, as Susan Okin observes, “the great tradition of political philosophy consists, generally speaking, of writings by men, for men, and about men’ (1979: 5). To study this tradition from a feminist perspective is to be struck by the extent to which the civic and legal status of women was long considered to be a subject unworthy of theoretical treatment - or perhaps merely beneath the theorists’ contempt, and therefore outside the purview of historians of political thought, most of ‘whom happen to be male. The neglect of women in the history of Western (and indeed non-Westem) political thought is a silence that, to modern eats, is deafening. Feminist rereadings and reappraisals’ of the ‘canon’ of ‘classic’ works have made, and con- tinue to make, startling and often unsuspected con- nections between phenomena as apparently disparate as a thinker’s view of the family and his (yes, his) view of liberty, authority, power, equal= ity, obligation, and other concepts in political theory. ‘A feminist or gender-centred approach to the history of political thought began in the 1960s when ‘women were looking for a ‘usable past’, « history that connected present struggles with previous ones largely neglected by historians, most of whom were male. Feminist historians of political thought sought heroines - and heroes — who had champi- ‘oned the cause of women’s rights and related ‘causes, One early anthology (Sehneir, 1972) included not only selections from Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Goldman, and others, but also a section on ‘Men as Feminists’, which placed Friedrich Engels, Jobn Stuart Mill, and other men in the feminist pan” theon, This transgender ‘popular front’ sought support from all available quarters Several specialized studies of particular thinkers appeared during this brief period, Theorists who might roughly be labelled as ‘liberal’ were singled ‘out for special attention and homage. Melissa Butler (1991) found the ‘liberal roots’ of feminism in Locke's ‘attack on patriarchalism'. Jeremy Bentham was honoured as ‘the father of feminism” (Boralevi, 1984: ch, 2) and John Stuart Mill as its “patron saint” (Williford, 1975). This popular front was shortlived, however, for the father was ‘exposed as a patriarch and something of a misogy- nist and the patron saint as a closet sinner with feet of clay (Okin, 1979: ch, 9; Pateman, 1988; 1989), ‘The differences between outright misogynists such as Aristotle and Rousseau and their more enlight- ened liberal brothers were merely matters. of degree, not of kind, Male theorists marginalize women by placing them outside the public or civic sphere in which men move and act politically (Elshtain, 1981), In the name of protecting the weak, men have by and large lumped women with children and idiots and have therefore accorded them decidedly less than the rights and obligations of full-ledged citizens. And nowhere are these nefarious moves more evident than in the so-called classics of political thought. In this angrier ~ and arguably more accurate ~ second phase, feminist scholars set out to expose and criticize the misogyny lurking in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke,24 Handbook of Political Theory Rousseau, Bentham, Mill, and Mars, amongst many ‘others. The public/private dichotomy and the con- cept of consent in liberal theory are a sham, the social contract is a ‘fraternal’ construct, and the ‘modern welfare state is @ covertly patriarchal insti- tution (Pateman, 1989). Not only are misogyny and. patriarchy present in the history of political thought, they can be found in histories of political thought written by males whose interpretations of (say) Locke reproduce the latter’s sexism by failing 10 detect or criticize its presence (1989: ch. 5). ‘A third phase followed in which the ostensibly civie virtues of men were tumed into vices - the hunger for power, domination, or simply showing ‘off that women supposedly lacked. Men are dom ineering, women nurturing; men competitive, women co-operative; men think and judge in abstract and universal categories, women in con- crete and particular instances; and so on. A new phrase - ‘maternal thinking’ - was coined to cover this gently militant momism (Ruddick, 1989). On this view, men are absent fathers and domineering. patriarchs; women are caring and concerned mothers. speaking “in a different voice’ (Gilligan, 1982) This represents something of a retum to the “biology-is-destiny’ essentialism and “functional- ism’ criticized so vigorously by Okin and others. It also accepts the public/private distinction criticized by Pateman and others, upending and reifying that dichotomy so that the “private” realm of the family is taken to be superior to the ‘public’ area of poli- tics, power, aggression, and war (Elshtain, 1987). ‘Thus was Aristotle tumed on his head, and Antigone reread as a heroic defence of the family against an aggressive and anti-familial political realm (Elshtain, 1981; 1982). ‘The new ‘maternal thinking’ — and the new mater- nalists’ approach to the history of political thought, in particular ~ did not want for critics. Against the nalists’ valorization of the private realm and the celebration of mothering, Mary Diet (1985) and. ‘other feminist erties held out the prospect of an active and engaged eivie feminism, or ‘citizenship ‘with @ feminist face’, This prospect is precluded, ot at Ieast dimmed considerably, by inadequate inter rotations of Aristotle and other seminal figures ftom whom feminists might yet lean something of value about politics and citizenship. A ‘more gener= ‘ous reading’ of Aristotle, Sophocles, and others yields political insights and civic lessons that acartoon- like inversion cannot hope to match (1985: 29). If feminists are to lear and apply these lessons, they ‘must engage in more nuanced textual analysis and historical interpretation. The Western political tradi- tion is not reducible to an abattoir or a sinkhole of misogyny and other vices; it ean, despite its various vices and when properly understood, bea wellspring of political wisdom. ‘Straussian’ Interpretation Straussians — followers of the late Leo Strauss (1899-1973) ~ claim that a eanon of works by Plato and a handful of other authors contains the Whole Truth about polities, a truth which is eternal, unchanging, and accessible only to the fortunate few [sce further Chapter 3]. Gaining access to this ‘uth requires a special way of reading and of inter- preting what one reads. Strauss was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who emigrated to the United States and subse- quently attracted an attentive and loyal band of students and followers. He brought with him the memory of the short-lived Weimar Republic and the rise to power of Hitler and his Nazi thugs. He dotested modem liberalism and distrusted liberal democracy, in no small part because Hitler had come to power in a liberal-democratie regime by Tegal and democratic means. It was therefore unsur- prising that Strauss saw the history of modem ‘Western liberal political thought asa story of degenc- tation and enfeeblement. He and his followers con- trasted the vigour of classical Greek and Roman political thought with the resigned ennui of slack- minded modern liberal thinkers. Moder liberalison is a philosophy without foundations. Having eschewed any grounding in nature or natural law, modern liberalism, from Hobbes to the present, is, reduced to a spineless relativism and is therefore ‘without the normative foundations and philosophi- cal resources to resist the winds of twenticth- century fanaticism blowing from both tight and le The ‘crisis of the West’, as diagnosed by Oswald Spengler and Carl Schmitt, amongst others, has cep philosophical roots. “The erisis of our time,” Strauss announced, ‘is a consequence of the crisis of political philosophy" (1972: 41). His and his dis- ciples” historical inquiries and textual interpreta- tions attempted to trace the origins and diagnose if not cure the multiple maladies of liberalism, rela- tivism, historicism and scientism that together con- tribute to “the crisis of our time’. The present being bankrupt, students of political philosophy must look to the past for guidance; they must be historians but not “historicists", Historicism is the relativist doc- trine that different ages have different, if not indeed incommensurable, mentalités and outlooks; accord- ingly, we modems can hardly hope to understand, much less lear from, Plato and other earlier thinkers. The history of political thought, on this historicist view, becomes a vast burial ground instead of what it can and should be — a source of genuine knowledge and a reliable guide for the petplexed (Strauss, 1959). Knowledge and guidance of the sort we require are not easy to come by, however. They require that ‘we read these ‘old books" aright — that we decipherHistory and the Interpretation of Texts 25 the real meaning of the messages encoded by authors fearful of persecution and wishing to com- municate with cognoscenti through the ages (Strauss, 1952). For philosophy is dangerous; to espouse its truths in public in that liberal oxy- moron known as the ‘marketplace of ideas’ - is to risk ridicule and incomprehension, or even persecu- tion, by hai polloi. To communicate with the great thinkers of antiquity is to appreciate how far we have fallen. The rot began in the seventeenth century, with the advent of modem liberalism, and that of Hobbes and Locke especially (Strauss, 1953). They disavowed the ancient wisdom and the older idea of natural law, favouring instead a view of politics founded on security and self-interest. The ancient “philosophical” quest for the good life was transmuted into the modem ‘scientific’ search for safety, security, and the accommodation of compet- ing interests TThe ‘Straussian’ approach to the history of politi- cal thought requires the recovery of ancient, or at any rate premodern and preliberal, knowledge of “political things’. And this in tur requires that one read not only the classies - Plato and Aristotle, in particular ~ but texts and authors who show us the way back into the labyrinth, e.g. Xenophon, Alfarabi, Maimonides, and others who are rarely (if ever) included in the non-Straussian curriculum (Strauss and Cropsey, 1972; Strauss, 1983), In this way one is sensitized (0, and initiated into the secrets of, political philosophy. Most philosophers have writ” ten two doctrines —an ‘exoteric’ one meant for cor sumption by the uninitiated, and a deeper “esoteric doctrine to be decoded and understood by those ini- tiated into the mysteries. A ‘Straussian” interpreta- tion involves reading between the lines of the written text, so as to reveal its ‘real’, albeit hidden, meaning which is communicated, as it were, in a kind of invisible ink. Straussian interpretation ‘owes much to the cabalistc tradition inaugurated by medieval rabbis and scholars, who read religious scripture as texts that had been encoded by authors fearful of persecution and wishing to be understood only by readers who were clean, pure of heart, and initiated into the inner cicle Straussian interpretations have been criticized on a number of grounds. One is that they rely on the sort of supposed ‘insider's knowledge" that is avail- able only to those who have been initiated into the ‘mysteries of Straussian interpretation (and who in tum conveniently dismiss criticisms by non-Straussian outsiders as being hopelessly ignorant and unin- formed). Another is that they assume, without argu- ment or evidence, that the ‘real’ text does not correspond, point for point, to the written and pub- licly available ‘exoteric’ text; the real or ‘esoteric text remains hidden from public view, its meaning inaccessible to the uninitiated and unworthy. Postmodernist interpretation The interpretive standpoint or perspective of postmodernism arises out of “the postmodern con- dition’ of fragmentation and the failure of system- atic philosophies or “grand metanarratives’ such as Hegelianism and Marxism that emerged from the European Enlightenment (Lyotard, 1984). Post- ‘modernism is not a single, unified perspective; nor, stil less, is it a systematic philosophy shared by all who call themselves postmoderists. This diffuse ‘group includes Mikhail Bakhtin, Paul de Man, Roland Barthes, Jean-Frangois Lyotard and Jacques Derida (literary critics and scmioticians), Michel Foucault (social historian and genealogist), Jacques Lacan (psychoanalyst), Gaston Bachelard (historian of science), Jean Baudrillard (cultural theorist and critic), Richard Rorty (philosopher), and William F. Connolly (political theorist), among many others. All respond, in different ways, to the postmodern condition of fragmentation, discontinuity, disillu- sionment, and contingency. The world is not as ‘coherent, continuous and comprehensible as earlier (and especially Enlightenment) thinkers believed, Even our most basic beliefs are historically contin- gent (Rorty, 1989), Pace Hegel and Marx, history hhas no larger point or ‘meaning’ discernible via an ‘overarching philosophy of history or ‘grand narra- tive’ (Lyotard, 1984). Nor is there progress in ‘human affairs. What is called progress is more often than not an advance in some dominant group's power to oppress another. Advances in technology ~ in communications technology, say ~ increase the opportunity for surveillance and suppression (Foucault) and mass media promote one-dimensional views of truth, beauty, normality, and morality that perpetuate and legitimize the modem ‘consumer society and those who profit from it (Baudrillard. ‘The postmodern sensibility is not a single, stable thing. There are, to simplify somewhat, two main versions of postmodernist interpretation, One derives largely from Nietzsche and Foucault; the other, from Derrida. I shall briefly consider the former before describing the later. ‘A Foucauldian approach to interpretation seeks to expose and criticize the myriad ways in which hhuman beings are ‘normalized’ or made into ‘sub- jects’, .c, willing participants in their own subjugation (Foucault, 1980). Thus a postmodemist perspective ‘on the interpretation of texts typically focuses on the ways in which earlier thinkers — Rousseau or Bentham, for example - contributed ideas to the ‘mentalité that paved the way for the creation and legitimation of the modern surveillance society. ‘And conversely postmodernist interpreters look for ‘earlier thinkers who challenged or questioned or undermined these ideas. This Foucauldian approach26 Handbook of Political Theory is well represented by William Connolly's Political Theory and Modernity (1988). Connolly begins with the genial suggestion that one view earlier thinkers as collegial contemporaries residing down the hall from one’s office. To read their works is like dropping by for a friendly chat (1988: vii) (This is perhaps the amiably unbuttoned postmodemn- egalitarian equivalent to Machiavelli's. “entering the ancient courts of ancient men’, minus the Florentine’s somewhat stringent dress code.) The reader's questions are posed, and criticisms made, from the perspective of the present — that is, of ‘modemity’ and the constitution of the modem ‘subject’ Given this set of coneems Connolly proposes to reread the history of political thought in a new and. presumably more fruitful way. That is, we can see ‘who has contributed to or dissented from the project of modernity and the construction of the modem surveillance society. A postmodemist rereading relocates and realigns earlier thinkers along alto- gether different axes, A postmodernist reading of the history of political thought not only exposes heretofore unsuspected villains, it also reveals heroes who have dared to resist the pressures and processes of ‘normalization’. Amongst the former are Hobbes and Rousseau. That the historical Rousseau was exceedingly critical of the historical Hobbes does not matter for a postmodernist read- ing, For we can now see them as birds of a feather, ‘each having extended ‘the gaze’ ever mote deeply into the inner recesses of the human psyche, thereby aiding and abetting the subjugation of modern men ‘and women, Amongst the latter, the Marquis de Sade and Friedrich Nietzsche are particularly prominent. “We can,’ as Connolly contends, “treat Sade as a dissident thinker whose positive formula- tions are designed to crack the foundations upon which the theories of Hobbes and Rousseau rest (1988: 73). Whether this design was consciously formulated and put into play by the aristocratic French pomographer is, at best, doubtful; but like ‘other postmodernist interpreters Connolly eschews any concer with such historical niceties as authorial intention. Despite their emphasis on ‘identity’ and ‘differ« ‘ence’, postmodernists are not at all concerned with ‘what John Dunn (1968) has termed the ‘historical identity’ of works of political theory; nor are they ‘concerned with the differences that earlier thinkers saw amongst themselves, Rousseau hardly saw himself as Hobbes's soulmate ~ quite the contrary, ‘on Rousseau’s own telling — but this does not deter postmodemists from lumping these theorists together as fellow labourers on and contributors to ‘a common project. Whether, o to what extent, such second-guessing is good history or bad remains a ‘matter of considerable controversy. In Derrida’s version of postmodernism, the aim of interpretation isto expose and eritiize the arbi- trary or constructed character of claims to truth or knowledge, particularly by examining various binary oppositions or dichotomies such as knower known, objectepreseniation, texvinterpretation, tmuclfalse — a process that Derida (1976) calls ‘deconstruction’. According to Derrida, all attempts to ‘represent’ reality produce, not knowledge or truth, but only different ‘representations’, none of which can be proven to be better or truer than any other. All social phenomena and forms of humen experience - wars, revolutions, relations between the sexes, and so on ~ exist only through their rep reseniations or texts’, And just as literary text has many possible interpretations, so, says Derrida, do these other texts admit of multiple and contradic tory ‘readings’ or interpretations. And all intexpre- tations of meaning are in the final analysis ‘indeterminate’ and ‘undecidable’. As Derrida famously puts i, ‘there is nothing outside the text” and even within the text its constitutive concepts or ‘sighifiers’ have no stable meaning. Ambiguities within the text only increase with the passage of time and multiple and varied readings, until the text's signifies float freely and playfully apart, so that the reader ~ not the author ~ constructs what- ever meaning the text may be said to have. Thus “the death of the author’ refers not to a physical fact ‘bu to an atifet of postmodernist interpretation ‘Various criticisms ean be levelled against a post- ‘modernist perspective on interpretation. One is that ‘we do sometimes wish, and legitimately so, to know ‘whether something Marx or Mill said was true. We will not be helped by being told that truefalse is a specious ‘binary’. More perniciously, with its empha- sis on diverse, divergent and conflicting ‘readings? or interpretations ~ there are allegedly no facts, only interpretation ‘all the way down’ — postmodernism is constitutionally unable to distinguish trath from. falsehood and propaganda from fact. Thus ~to take a particularly dramatic example - the differences, between those who recognize the reality of the Holocaust as reported by survivors and chronicled by carcful historians such as Raul Hilberg, and those (mainly neo-Nazis) who deny it ever hap pened, are, by postmodernist lights, differences of interpretation and not of truth or falsity. But, as, erities of postmodernism note, some ‘represen- tations’ are mistepresentations ~ or, more bluntly, lies — that serve to conceal and/or legitimate abuses of some human beings by others. A perspective that professes to be unable to tell fact from fiction or ‘rue statements from lies is surely unsatisfactory not only from an epistemological but from a moral point of view, Finally, though not least, posimod- emists place themselves in a logieal bind, Derrida, for one, has complained, often and loudly, thatHistory and the Interpretation of Texts 27 some of his critics have misread, misinterpreted, and misrepresented his views, But how can that be, if meanings are indeterminate and authorial inten- tions are irrelevant in interpreting texts, including those written by Derrida? Cambridge ‘New History’ The Cambridge ‘new historians’ have, since the 1960s, advanced a distinetive programme of histor- ical research and textual interpretation, Ils origins ‘may be traced in part to R, G. Collingwood’s (1978 [1939]) approach to the history of philosophy (Skinner, 2001). That history, he said, was not about an eternal but finite set of questions to which different philosophers have proposed different answers, It was, rather, about historically variable problems to which particular philosophers proposed particular answers If there were a permanent problem P, we could ask “wht dd Kant, or Leibniz, or Berkeley, think about P?" But what is Uhought to be a permanent problem P is really a number of transitory problems p, pp, ‘whose individual peculiarities are blured by the histori sal myopia of the person who lumps them together lunder the one name P. (1978 [1939]: 69) In contrast to those who claim that there are ‘peren- nial” questions or problems in political theory (c.. Tinder, 1979), Collingwood argued that the ques- tions themselves change in subtle but significant ways. If'we are to understand the meaning of something that a particular political theorist wrote, we must first understand the problem he was addressing and altempting to solve, This Collingwoodian approach informs Peter Laslett’s lengthy and learned introduction to his edition of John Locke's ZWo Treatises of Government (1960 [1690]), which restored Locke's political srea- tise to its political and historical context in the Exelusion Crisis ofthe early 1680s. Far from having this head in the clouds of philosophical abstraction, Locke was deeply involved in the radical politics of the Shaftesbury circle. By means of some brilliant historical detective work, Laslett showed that Locke's Tivo Treatises had been written nearly a decade earlier than anyone had heretofore supposed ‘and that, far from offering a post hoc justification of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, Locke was pre- scribing and legitimizing just that sort of revolution- ary action before the fact. Laslett's scholarly sleuthing paved the way for subsequent interp tions of Locke (Dunn, 1969; Tully, 1980; 1993; Asheraft, 1986) in particular, and of other works of political theory more generally IF Laslett was circumspect about articulating and defending his method of historical investigation and textual interpretation, others were not. JG. A. Pocock (1962), John Dunn (1968; 1969; 1996), and — most ‘especially — Quentin Skinner (1969; 2002; Tully, 1989) provided deflationary critiques of traditional textbook’ approaches to the interpretation of works of political theory. Most of what has heretofore passed as the history of political theory has been insufficiently historical, ie, coneemed with the context and situation in which Locke and others found themselves and the problems with which they dealt [see also Chapter 30}, In his The Political Thought of John Locke (1969) Dunn derides psychoanalytic, Marxian, and Straussian interpretations. His is, he says, a“histor- ical ... account of what Locke was talking about, not @ doctrine written (perhaps unconsciously) by hhim in a sort of invisible ink which becomes appar- cent only when held up to the light (or heat) of the twenticth-century mind’. Dunn rejects the quixotic attempts by ‘a succession of determined philo- sophers mounting their scholastic Rosinantes and riding forth to do battle with a set of disused wind- mills, or solermnly and expertly flailing thin ai Dunn's inquiry aims instead to restore the windmill to its orginal condition, to show how, creakingly but unmistakably, the sails used to tum, Even at the level of preserving ancient monuments itis perhaps a service to recondition these hallowed tar- gels. There seems litle purpose in recording hits on & target that has no existence outside our own minds (1969: x) The Cambridge historians view works of political theory as forms of political action, grasping the point or meaning of which requires that one recover the intentions of the actor/author and the linguistic resources and conventions available to him or her (Skinner, 2002). A work of political theory is itself 2 political act or intervention consisting of a series ff interconnected actions with words — ‘speech acts’ in J. L. Austin’s sense ~ that are intended to produce certain effects in the reader: to warn, (© persuade, to criticize, to frighten, to encourage, to console, etc. Political theorists have not, by and large, been armchair philosophers engaged in abstract thinking. They have been political actors engaged in high-level propaganda and persuasion ‘on behalf of this or that politcal cause: the eritique (or defence) of democracy; the critique (or defence) of royal absolutism; likewise for religious tolera- tion, resistance and regicide, the French (or other) revolutions, capitalism, the emancipation of slaves and/or women, and so on, through a rather long list ‘of political causes and campaigns. Textual interpre- tation is largely a matter of restoring a texto the historical context in which it was composed and the question(s) to which it was offered as an answer.28 Handbook of Political Theory CONCLUSION: PLURALISTIC AND PROBLEM-DRIVEN INTERPRETATION I come, finally and by way of conclusion, to my ‘own view of these matters. Very briefly: I do not, believe that any single method will suffice 10 answer all the questions we wish to ask of any work of political theory. This nudges me in the direction of eclecticism or, better perhaps, of pluralism. A. plurality of approaches and methods is preferable to ‘2 more confining mono-methodology that restricts, the range of questions we can ask and address. For example, I agree with the Cambridge historians about the importance, indeed the indispensability, of the contexts intellectual, political and linguistic — in which political theorists write and their texts appear and do their work. But of course these con- texts are varied and multiple, encompassing not, only the context in which a text was written, but also the successive contexts in which it ‘was received, read, interpreted, criticized, reread, and reinterpreted and perhaps put to uses very different from those the author intended. As Alan Ryan observes: Once the essay or book in which we are interested has been put before the public, it takes ona life ofits own, Whatever the copyright laws, an author has only a limited control over his own writings. What he writes ‘will have implications which he did not see ~implica- tions in the satrow sense of more or less logical infer- ences from what he says to the consequences of what he says ... Works oullive their authors, and take on Hives their writers might be perturbed to see. (1984: 3-4) Thus authorial intentions, although important, are not in every instance all-important. For certain pur= poses one may wish to discover, recover, and restate an author's intentions so as t© show what he ‘was trying to do in using a certain word or phrase, cr constructing a particular argument in a particular way, or even composing an entire treatise. But sometimes we are less interested in Locke, say, than in what subsequent author-aetors — Thomas Jefferson, for example, or some modern feminists — ‘made of Locke’s text, and quite possibly in ways that Locke would not or even could not have intended, did not foresee, and almost certainly would not have approved of. Because political actions ~ including the act of writing — often pro- ‘duce unintended consequences, a focus on authorial intention is not always appropriate or helpful ‘A second feature of my view is that our interpre- tive inquiries are problem-driven; that is, we are likely to be less interested in authors, texts, and/or ‘contexts per se than in particular problems that arise as We attempt to understand them. As a rule we come to Locke or Rousseau not because we want to know ‘all about” them or their texts oF their times, but because we are puzzled about something. Was ‘Thomas More being serious or satirical in descrit- ing his fictional Utopia as ‘the best state ofthe com- monwealth’? Did Locke really mean to defend the property rights of a rising bourgeoisie? How are we to understand the role of the ‘civil religion’ in Rousseau's Social Contract? What are the probable sources of John Stuart Mill's feminist sympathies? ‘What was the nature of Marx's debt to Hegel and how did it shape his view of history and human progress? Such problems can come from any source and be of almost any sort. One might be interested in Mill because one is sympathetic to or highly eritical of the liberal tradition, or because one believes that liberty is under threat and that Mill might shed some light on our modem predicament. Or one might wish to assess the (in)adequacy of the Westem and liberal conception of tolerance in light of some contemporary question or issue and find it both necessary and desirable to reread and reap- praise Locke on toleration and Mill on liberty. In short, the problem-driven ‘context of discovery’ is ‘wide open, even as the ‘context of justification’ is rather more restricted* The problems can come from anywhere and be addressed via a variety of strategies; but the (inadequacy of the resulting interpretive solutions must be assessed according to more stringent scholarly criteria The historical study of politcal theory is, in sum, a problem-solving activity. It takes other interpreta- tions as altemative solutions to some puzzle or problem, and then goes on to assess their adequacy vis each other and in relation to one’s own proposed solution. Interpretation is, 0 to speak, a kind of triangulation between the text and two (or ‘more) interpretations of it. Hence we cannot but take others’ interpretations into account, reapprais- ing their adequacy and value. The activity of reread- ing, reinterpretation, and reappraisal is not incidental to the practice of politcal theory but is instead an indispensable — indeed a defining feature of our craft Political theory, perhaps more than any other ‘vocation, takes its own past to be an essential part of its present. Its past includes not only a history of theorizing, of great (and not-so-great) books, but a history of commentary and interpretation. It is through the later that the former are reconsidered, criticized, and re-evaluated — in short, reappraised ‘The seminal works of political theory are kept alive and vivid — keep their ‘classic’ status, so to speak ~ not by being worshipped at academic shrines by on the contrary, by being carefully reinterpreted and critically reappraised from a variety of interpretive standpoints.History and the Interpretation of Texts 29 NOTES | For a critique and attempted refutation of this inter pretation of Rousseau's intentions, particularly as regards his réligion civil, see Ball (1995: ch. 3). 2 For further eritieisms of Popper’ (mis)intexpretation ‘of Hegel, see Kaufinann (1972), 3 Tlappily, this example is drawn not from personal ‘experience but from Hall (1966). Sadly, he adds: Unpleasant dreams are more mumerous than pleasant ‘ones, and as one gets older the proportion of unpleasant «dreams increases” (1966: 40), 4 This judgement may prove premature, as some post- ‘modemists practise @ form of psychoanalytic interpreta- tion borrowed from Jacques Lacan, Seee., Zerili (1994) 'S For a wider-ranging (and more sympathetic) discs sion of postmodernism, see Jane Bennet in this volume [Chapter 4]. Sce further Dews (2003) 6 I borrow this distinesion fiom Reichenbach (1962: oD. REFERENCES ‘Ashoraf Richard (1986) Revolutionary Plt and Locke Tio Treatises on Government, Princeton, NI: Princeton University Pres, Ball, Terence (1987) ‘Deadly hermeneutics; of, Sinn and the social scientist’. In Terence Ball, ed, Tdioms of Inguiry: Critique and Renewal in Political Science ‘Albany, NY: State University of New York Pres, ch Ball, Terence (1998) Reappratsing Political Theor: Revisionst Studies inthe History of Political Thought. 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