Meaning and Translation in the History of Ideas: Towards a Post-Contextualist Political Theory

As Dowding has stated in his recent article (2020), parasitical subjects such as ‘philosophy of x’ are normally closely intertwined with their relevant subject matter. Whilst Dowding used this point to argue for a turn to more scientifically-minded political theory, he takes it for granted that the history of political concepts will be unproblematically available for use in contemporary theorising. Such a declaration shows just how far academic discourse has moved since the original ‘contextualist’ challenge threaten to overturn the history of ideas in the 1960s and 70s (Skinner, 1969; Pocock, 1972). Such a challenge effectively stripped political theorists of control over their discipline’s own history, which was demarcated as the exclusive preserve of a new species of intellectual historian. Despite this departmental usurpation, it is clear that even some of the most influential figures of the contextualist moment have now repudiated their youthful radicalism and are instead engaged in attempts to draw their own lessons from the past (e.g. Skinner, 1998). Nevertheless, the contextualist challenge remains intellectually live, and a complete reconciliation between political theory and its own history remains necessarily incomplete until a satisfactory method for overcoming the contextualist objection can be developed. This paper aims to provide a suggestion for how contemporary political theorists can surmount this obstacle, and reclaim the history of their own subject, by taking inspiration from translation theory. The central argument is that just as an accurate translation moves meaning between linguistic contexts, political theory can make use of the same methodological tools to move meaning between historical contexts. The paper therefore draws upon a range of cutting-edge contemporary literature on translation theory (such as Malmkjaer, 2022) in order to construct a methodology of historical translation, which promises to once again allow political theorists to engage with their intellectual predecessors in collaborative meaning-making. Just as Dowding’s intervention has helped to close the gap between political philosophy and political science, this project thereby aims to finally rebuild intellectual bridges between political philosophers and the history of their subject.