J.G.A. Pocock

J. G. A. Pocock’s numerous investigations have all revolved around the fruitful assumption that a work of political thought can only be understood in light of the linguistic constraints to which its author was subject, for these prescribed both the choice of subject matter and the author’s conceptualization of this subject matter. its meaning, even if the philosopher had no knowledge of the period of the text’s composition.

The language Pocock has most closely investigated is that of “civic humanism.” For much of his career he has argued that eighteenth-century English political thought should be interpreted as a conflict between rival versions of the “virtue” central to civic humanism. On the one hand, he argues, this virtue is described by virtue using a vocabulary of commerce and economic progress; for them the ideal is the merchant.

In making such linguistic discriminations Pocock has disassociated himself from historians like Namier, who deride all eighteenth-century English political language as “cant.” But while Pocock’s ideas have proved fertile when applied to England, they are more controversial when applied to the late-eighteenth-century United States. Pocock’s assertion that Jefferson’s attacks on the commercial though guilty of some exaggeration, has done the most to make us aware of their importance.