Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

  I wrote here recently about Richard Tuck's book on Hobbes. I mentioned that Tuck is also the author of a PHILOSOPHY AND GOVERNMENT: 1572 - 1651, a broad work on the development of European political thought in those fascinating decades, and I suggested that I would have something more to say about how Tuck's broad approach feeds into his study of Hobbes. This is that more. Tuck is fascinated by the cross-channel connection between the Brits and the Dutch. The Brits were happy to support lowland rebels against the Spanish empire, when THAT was the central opposition in their world. But once the Dutch became an empire themselves, the Brits' attitude turned hostile.  Hobbes, especially on Tuck's reading, owed a lot to the Lowlanders in the development of his own thought Consider Justus Lipsius, a Flemish classicist, (1547 - 1606) on the one hand and Hugo Grotius (1583 -1645) the escapee from a Dutch prison who defined the modern notion of a "just war," on the o...

  Tuck's book on Hobbes is part of the Past Masters series.  Tuck was certainly qualified to write it. He was professor of government at Harvard. He was the author of Natural Rights Theories (1979) and Philosophy and Government 1572-1651 (1993).  Now, wait a second. The book was published in 1989, how can its About the Author page cite a 1993 book? I gather I'm looking at a reprint.  Anyway, the title of the 1993 book intrigues me. It gives the terminal dates of its coverage as 1572 to 1651. What events do the terminal dates reference?  In 1572, fifteen hundred English volunteers under Humphrey Gilbert (an adventurer, shown above, not acting officially on behalf of the Queen) fought the Spanish/Hapsburg forces in the Netherlands, on behalf of the Dutch resistance, known at this time as the Sea Beggars. That seems to be an important date in Tuck's understanding of British intellectual history, because it helped set England on the road to more direct confrontation...