The Cambridge School of the History of Political Philosophy

The Cambridge School is one of the major influences on the philosophy of intellectual history. J.G.A. Pocock interpreted Machiavelli as revealing how a new prince used virtu to combat fortuna, which crowded out the paradigms of traditional custom and religious providence to begin modern political thought. Quentin Skinner relied more on speech act theory and showed that while Machiavelli believed in protecting our negative liberty from interference he also demanded a republic of self-rule with plenty of offices open to all citizens. Philip Pettit argues this is different from being free from arbitrary domination, which only needs open avenues to contest government decisions. In the end, John Maynor stresses that we ourselves should personally avoid dominating others.