Argument and Authority in Early Modern England: The Presupposition of Oaths and Offices

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Cambridge University Press, Mar 17, 2006 - History - 399 pages
Conal Condren offers a radical reappraisal of the character of moral and political theory in early modern England through an exploration of pervasive arguments about office. In this context he explores the significance of oath-taking and three of the major crises around oaths and offices in the seventeenth century. This fresh focus on office brings into serious question much of what has been taken for granted in the study of early modern political and moral theory concerning, for example, the interplay of ideologies, the emergence of a public sphere, of liberalism, reason of state, de facto theory, and perhaps even political theory and moral agency as we know it. Argument and Authority is a major new work from a senior scholar of early modern political thought, of interest to a wide range of historians, philosophers and literary scholars.

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Contents

An overview
15
Ceremonies of office The kiss of the tuttiman
36
Institutionalised office a sense of the scavenger
54
The vocabulary of office
80
Offices of the intellect player poet and philosopher
105
Soul and conscience
125
The authority and insolence of office
147
The cases of patriot and counsellor
149
I A B
231
An overview of the oath in seventeenthcentury argument
233
Coronation oaths
254
The oath of allegiance of 1606
269
Engagement with a free state
290
The oath of allegiance and the Revolution of 16889
314
Epilogue
343
Bibliography
353

Casuistry as the mediation of office
172
The case of resistance to superior power
186
Metaphor and political autonomy
209

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About the author (2006)

Conal Condren is Scientia Professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of New South Wales.

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