Abstract

W. H. Greenleaf has been widely acknowledged as a significant contributor to the gradual development of a more historically sensitive attitude to the study of political thought. J. G. A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner, two of the leading figures in the present methodological debate raging in the history of political thought, while disagreeing with some of Greenleaf’s ideas, pay tribute to his effort to change the character of the discipline. Pocock, for example, suggests that “Greenleaf’s important contribution is that he compels us to regard English political thought in terms of the styles of legitimation and explanation currently available” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Critics of Pocock and Skinner have maintained that Greenleaf’s historical perspective may prove to be the most fruitful for organizing the study of the history of political thought, and J. G. Gunnell asserts that much of what Skinner says echoes comments that Greenleaf had made as early as 1964. However, when Greenleaf is mentioned in methodological discussions he is given very little consideration. I know of only one article that devotes more than one or two paragraphs to outlining his ideas, and even its characterization proves to be inadequate because the views presented and criticized there draw only upon Greenleaf’s Order, Empiricism and Politics and neglect the subsequent development of his theoretical position. The essence of Lockyer’s criticism of Greenleaf’s articulation of the traditions of order and empiricism is that they “are static and ossified abstractions, and therefore of little use in explaining the development of ideas.” Lockyer suggests that in order to exhibit traditions as having a more fluid and dynamic content, the thoughts of Collingwood and Hegel can usefully be invoked. The irony of the criticism is that Greenleaf, after 1964, drew on a whole range of idealist thinkers, including Collingwood and Hegel, in order to present a view of traditions which captured the diversity of their content, while attempting to exhibit their unity through change.