44 The Nature of Political Theorylinguistic conventions, traditions, and paradigms are fundamentally constitutive of
a reality.
On the positive dimension, the first thing is to recover authorial intentions. Thus,
the question is—what was an author doing or intending in writing a text. The inter-
preter needs to understand both what an author was saying in a particular context and
something of the audience to whom it was addressed. Further, this implies knowing
what particular linguistic conventions are implied in that context. As Skinner remarks,
‘To understand what any given writer may have beendoing inusing some particular
concept or argument, we need first of all to grasp the nature and range of things that
could recognizably have been done by using that particular concept’ (Skinner in Tully
(ed.) 1988: 77). Speaking and writing are both viewed as linguistic contextual activ-
ities. Following J. L. Austin’s work, Skinner argues that one needs to grasp both the
locutionary meaning of utterances, and what the speaker was doing with that speech
act, namely, what Austin called the illocutionary meaning (see Skinner in Tully (ed.)
1988: 94).
It is worth briefly noting here that intentions are not so central to Pocock’s work.
Rather, he sees the need to piece together the complex languages or discourses in
which texts are articulated. Actions and texts are more open-ended in Pocock than
in Skinner’s view. Texts have a multitude of possible meanings. Pocock therefore
comments that the text may be an ‘actor in an indefinite series of linguistic processes’
(Pocock in Pagden (ed.) 1987: 30–1). Historians are thus asked to identify the diverse
languagesthroughwhich an author operated. Each language game or discourse has
its own idioms and idiosyncratic vocabulary. As Pocock comments, ‘The historian is
in considerable measure an archaeologist; he is engaged in uncovering the presence
of various language contents in which discourse has from time to time been con-
ducted’ (Pocock in Pagden (ed.) 1987: 23). It is the writer’s discourses (earlier Pocock
had called them paradigms), which are of primary interest, not just the authorial
intentions. However, Pocock adds the qualification here that ‘we do not say that
the language context is the only context, which gives the speech act meaning and
history, though we shall infallibly be accused of having said that; we say only that it
is a promising context with which to begin’. He situates his own project as mid-way
between Saussure’slangueandparole(Pocock in Pagden (ed.) 1987: 20 and 29). For
Pocock, discourse is not an intentional creation and it is considered as prior to speakers
and texts. Pocock thus uses specific aspects of texts to illustrate discourses. In this he
is more like Oakeshott in seeing philosophy as separate from genuine history (see
Boucher 1985: 152). Pocock, in fact, appears to view himself now more as a historian,
although not many historians would probably recognize this self-description.
For Skinner, conventions enable the historian to elicit authorial intentions. Con-
ventions, texts, and intentions are therefore equally important. He comments that one
needs to ‘focus not just on the text to be interpreted but on the prevailing conventions
governing the treatment of the issues or themes with which the text is concerned’
(Skinner in Tully (ed.) 1988: 77). All utterances are made in a context, which includes
linguistic conventions, and a wider range of social and intellectual conventions. This
body of conventions makes up what Skinner calls, on a number of occasions, the