The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts

319 Pages·1985·10.37 MB·English

by  Conal Condren

THE
STATUS AND APPRAISAL OF
CLASSIC TEXTS

THE
STATUS AND APPRAISAL OF
CLASSIC TEXTS
An Essay on Political Theory,
Its Inheritance,
and the History of Ideas
CONAL CONDREN
Princeton University Press
Princeton, New Jersey
Copyright © 1985 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 4i William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom:
Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be
found on the last printed page of this book
ISBN 0-691-07670-7
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from
the Paul Mellon Fund of Princeton University Press
This book has been composed in Linotron Electra.
Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books
are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are
chosen for strength and durability. Paperbacks, although satisfactory
for personal collections, are not usually suitable for library rebinding
Printed in the United States of America by
Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
TO A. C.
AND IN MEMORY OF W. J. AND B. E. M. C. AND P. C.,
WHO SHOULD HAVE OVERSEEN THE FINAL STAGES.

CONTENTS
PREFACE ίχ
ABBREVIATIONS xiii
PART ONE:
Introduction 3
1 Methodology, Its Character and Significance 17
2 Political Theory, Its Conventional Structure,
the Issue-Orthodoxy, and the Assessment of Texts 34
3 Political Theory and the Faith in a Tradition of
Classic Texts 57
PART TWO:
Introduction 81
4 Originality 92
5 ContributionandInfluence 119
6 Coherence 142
PART THREE:
Introduction 167
7 Ambiguity: Delineation and Typology 171
8 Ambiguity: Generation and Context 209
9 Towards an Explanation of Classic Status 253
APPENDIX
Intention, Text, Audience, and Objectivity 286
INDEX 295
SOCRATES:
Now then you agree in rejecting with me
the Gods you believed in when young,
And my creed you'll embrace "I believe in wide space,
in the Clouds, in the eloquent Tongue."
STREPSIADES:
If I happened to meet other Gods in the street,
I'd show the cold shoulder, I vow.
No libation I'd pour: not one victim more
on their altars I'll sacrifice now.
Aristophanes
The Clouds,
trans. Benjamin Rogers,
which ran last in 423 B.C.
"And it occurs to me that running a programme
like this is bound to create an enormous amount of
popular publicity for the whole area of philosophy in
general. Everyone's going to have their own theories
about what answer I'm eventually going to come up
with, and who better capitalize on that media market
than you yourselves? So long as you keep disagreeing
with each other violently enough and slagging each
other off in the popular press, and so long as you have
clever agents, you can keep yourselves on the gravy
train for life. How does that sound?"
The two philosophers gaped at him.
"Bloody hell," said Majikthise, "now that is what I
call thinking. Here Vroomfondel, why don't we think
of things like that?"
"Dunno," said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper,
"think our brains must be too highly trained
Majikthise."
So saying, they turned on their heels and walked
out of the door and into a lifestyle beyond their
wildest dreams.
Douglas Adams,
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
which did rather better in A.D. 1979
PREFACE
This book is largely a study of academic mythologies—in part, a
professional act of deconstruction. Put more simply, it is a book
about reading books and the reasons we give for requiring others
to read them also. Such a book is in danger of a mandarin seri­
ousness and self-indulgence; furthermore, it is one that has taken
nearly as long as it took Mr. Gibbon to scribble off his Decline
and Fall, and so teeters on the edge of a double jeopardy. Thus
in order to avoid a tedious pomposity, I have tried to keep in
mind the tag Nietzsche used in The Case of Wagner, Hdendo
dicere severum (through the laughable say what is serious). I hope
this compensates for any lapses of intellectual taste.
The essay began one dull London Sunday as a very serious, if
short, paper (it would have been longer had I then heard of
deconstruction) which I showed a few days later to my tutor. He
encouraged me to develop its themes further, and so it grew into
an enthusiastic and hasty Ph. D. thesis. Since then it has become
a somewhat more skeptical journey through my professional self
and (broadly) my academic environment. And, whatever its lim­
itations, the questions it raises must be important to anyone suf­
ficiently interested in books to have read this far. What makes
them good, and why are some forgotten? Why is a nodding ac­
quaintance with a few educationally de rigueur—"you mean you
haven't read von Aardvark?" To reply "Why should I?" often
hovers on the edge of impertinence, while the reasons for reading
seem so often to have the whiff of rhetorical defense mechanism
about them. The impertinent question is asked, or feared, the
machine switched on, and out come well-stamped words like
"original," "revelant," or "classic." But the questions are too im­
portant for this species of familiar response really to be good
enough, especially for those enmeshed in an academic world
which flows past largely in print. These are questions about how
we spend our time and how we persuade others to do likewise.
Put in these somewhat political terms, it is clear to me that what
follows could be explored much further in the zealous interests