"Skinner's maxim" meaning in All languages combined

See Skinner's maxim on Wiktionary

Proper name [English]

Etymology: After British intellectual historian Quentin Skinner, who formulated the principle in 1969. Head templates: {{en-proper noun}} Skinner's maxim
  1. (history) The principle that any historical account of what someone meant by a certain action or statement must in some measure conform to that person’s own understanding of what they were saying or doing. Wikipedia link: Quentin Skinner Categories (topical): History
    Sense id: en-Skinner's_maxim-en-name-IlBfc6OT Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Topics: history, human-sciences, sciences

Download JSON data for Skinner's maxim meaning in All languages combined (2.7kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "After British intellectual historian Quentin Skinner, who formulated the principle in 1969.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Skinner's maxim",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "History",
          "orig": "en:History",
          "parents": [
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984, Richard Rorty, “The historiography of philosophy: four genres”, in Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, Quentin Skinner, editors, Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, page 54",
          "text": "When we respect Skinner’s maxim we shall give an account of the dead thinker ‘in his own terms’, ignoring the fact that we should think ill of anyone who still used those terms today. When we ignore Skinner’s maxim, we give an account ‘in our own terms’, ignoring the fact that the dead thinker, in his linguistic habits as he lived, would have repudiated these terms as foregn to his interests and intentions.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988, Stephen Makin, “How can we find out what Ancient Philosophers said?”, in Phronesis, volume 33, number 2, →JSTOR, page 122",
          "text": "Historical reconstruction obeys Skinner’s Maxim: no agent can eventually be said to have said or meant something which he could never be brought to accept as a correct description of what he said or meant.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Patrick Fessenbecker, Reading Ideas in Victorian Literature: Literary Content as Artistic Experience, page 122",
          "text": "Historical reconstructions will follow ‘Skinner’s maxim’, and will constrain themselves to offering only descriptions that the writer in question could in principle endorse.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The principle that any historical account of what someone meant by a certain action or statement must in some measure conform to that person’s own understanding of what they were saying or doing."
      ],
      "id": "en-Skinner's_maxim-en-name-IlBfc6OT",
      "links": [
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        [
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "conform",
          "conform"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(history) The principle that any historical account of what someone meant by a certain action or statement must in some measure conform to that person’s own understanding of what they were saying or doing."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "history",
        "human-sciences",
        "sciences"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Quentin Skinner"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Skinner's maxim"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "After British intellectual historian Quentin Skinner, who formulated the principle in 1969.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Skinner's maxim",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English eponyms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proper nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "en:History"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984, Richard Rorty, “The historiography of philosophy: four genres”, in Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, Quentin Skinner, editors, Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, page 54",
          "text": "When we respect Skinner’s maxim we shall give an account of the dead thinker ‘in his own terms’, ignoring the fact that we should think ill of anyone who still used those terms today. When we ignore Skinner’s maxim, we give an account ‘in our own terms’, ignoring the fact that the dead thinker, in his linguistic habits as he lived, would have repudiated these terms as foregn to his interests and intentions.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988, Stephen Makin, “How can we find out what Ancient Philosophers said?”, in Phronesis, volume 33, number 2, →JSTOR, page 122",
          "text": "Historical reconstruction obeys Skinner’s Maxim: no agent can eventually be said to have said or meant something which he could never be brought to accept as a correct description of what he said or meant.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Patrick Fessenbecker, Reading Ideas in Victorian Literature: Literary Content as Artistic Experience, page 122",
          "text": "Historical reconstructions will follow ‘Skinner’s maxim’, and will constrain themselves to offering only descriptions that the writer in question could in principle endorse.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The principle that any historical account of what someone meant by a certain action or statement must in some measure conform to that person’s own understanding of what they were saying or doing."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "history",
          "history"
        ],
        [
          "account",
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        ],
        [
          "meant",
          "mean"
        ],
        [
          "action",
          "action"
        ],
        [
          "statement",
          "statement"
        ],
        [
          "conform",
          "conform"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(history) The principle that any historical account of what someone meant by a certain action or statement must in some measure conform to that person’s own understanding of what they were saying or doing."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "history",
        "human-sciences",
        "sciences"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Quentin Skinner"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Skinner's maxim"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (a644e18 and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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