This article questions the plausibility of the interpretation of Hobbes's liberty that Quentin Skinner articulates in Hobbes and Republican Liberty. It argues that Skinner's book fails to prove two of the three claims it must uphold: the ‘textual accuracy claim’ and his ‘methodological claim’. This article maintains that understanding Hobbes's use of liberty in Leviathan according to his definition of ‘corporall liberty’, as Skinner does, ignores many of Hobbes's claims that invoke liberty outside the beginning of chapter 21, resulting in a one-dimensional reading of Hobbes.
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References
1.
HobbesT. (1996 [1651]) Leviathan (ed. TuckR.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2.
HoodF.C. (1967) ‘Changes in Hobbes's Definition of Liberty’, The Philosophical Quarterly, April, pp. 150–163.
3.
SkinnerQ. (2002) ‘The Context of Hobbes's Theory of Political Obligation’ in Visions of Politics, Vol III: Hobbes and Civil Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 264–286.
4.
SkinnerQ. (2008) Hobbes and Republican Liberty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
