Peter Price
University of Sussex, Centre for Intellectual History, Department Member
- History of Economic Thought, Political History, European History, Social History, Social Sciences, International Relations, and 45 morePhilosophy Of Religion, Religion and Politics, Protestantism, Intellectual History, History of Political Thought, Social and Political Philosophy, Intellectual History of Enlightenment, Enlightenment, Scottish Enlightenment, Political Economy, Environmental Philosophy, Early Modern economic and social history, Stoicism, Justus Lipsius, Neostoicism, Anglicanism (Anglicanism), Shaftesbury, Eighteenth Century History, Eighteenth-Century literature, Seneca, Aristotle, Renaissance Aristotelianism, Stoic Tradition, Roman Stoicism, Early Modern Intellectual History, History Of Political Thought (Political Science), History of Philosophy, Covenant Theology, Joseph Butler, David Hume, Dispensationalism, Early Modern History, Political Economy and History, History of International Relations, History of Sociability, Sociability, Anglican Church History, History of Commerce, Self Interest, Christian Economics, Early English Enlightenment, Christian political economy, Political Science, Philosophy, and Historyedit
- My interest lies chiefly in the history of political thought from the Renaissance and Reformation to the end of the eighteenth century. I specialise in the link between religion and politics, and more relevantly the convergence between Christian theology and political economy in the early modern ... moreMy interest lies chiefly in the history of political thought from the Renaissance and Reformation to the end of the eighteenth century. I specialise in the link between religion and politics, and more relevantly the convergence between Christian theology and political economy in the early modern period. Additionally I explore major themes in the history of western thought, including republicanisms and monarchisms; war, democracy and empire; the rise of modern commercial states; the confrontation between radical and conservative forces (its shifting emphases and allegiances) and the Enlightenment.
My current research explores the rivalry between, on the one side, the political and religious establishment in eighteenth century Britain, and on the other the diffusion – or perhaps rather ‘infiltration’ – of heterodox continental reformed thought into the 'mainstream' via the dissenting academies. As a corollary, I am now embarking on a project examining the relationship between Dutch covenant theology and British political economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.edit
Josiah Tucker, who was the Anglican dean of Gloucester from 1758 until his death in 1799, is best known today as a controversialist, a political economist and a lesser contemporary of Adam Smith. Little attention has been paid, however,... more
Josiah Tucker, who was the Anglican dean of Gloucester from 1758 until his death in 1799, is best known today as a controversialist, a political economist and a lesser contemporary of Adam Smith. Little attention has been paid, however, to the important relationship between his religious writings and his wider economic thought. This article addresses this lack of attention in two ways: first by demonstrating the link between Tucker's conception of civil and religious liberty and his "science" of political economy, and second by drawing sustained attention to his economic adaptation and reformulation of the moral philosophy of Bishop Joseph Butler, Tucker's ecclesiastical mentor from 1739 to 1752. Emphasizing Butler and Tucker's views on the traditional Christian virtue of charity, and the moral duty of the rich towards the poor, the article suggests that both clergymen were proponents of a sociability-based, neo-Stoic conception of human nature, which was not only compatible with, but also dependent upon, the established Anglican Church and state and the predominantly Whig commercial order. In consequence, Tucker's political economy was premised on the unavoidability of social subordination and economic inequality as necessary hallmarks of modern commercial society. Accordingly, the article closes with a brief discussion of Tucker's "Butlerian" assessment and rejection of the "anti-social" doctrine of individual natural rights, associated with the popular radicalism of the American and French Revolutions in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Intellectual History, Natural Law, Political Science, Enlightenment, Intellectual History of Enlightenment, and 15 moreAnglicanism (Anglicanism), History of Sociability, Sociability, Global Intellectual History, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, State of Nature, Joseph Butler, Neostoicism, "natural Law" Jurisprudence, Political Economy and History, Self Interest, Oikonomia, Christian political economy, and Josiah Tucker
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23801883.2018.1492422 Istvan Hont’s classic work on the theoretical links between the seventeenth-century natural jurists Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf and the eighteenth-century... more
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23801883.2018.1492422
Istvan Hont’s classic work on the theoretical links between the seventeenth-century natural jurists Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf and the eighteenth-century Scottish political economists remains a popular trope among intellectual and economic historians of various stamps. Despite this, a common criticism levelled at Hont remains his relative lack of engagement with the relationship between religion and economics in the early modern period. This paper challenges this aspect of Hont’s narrative by drawing attention to an alternative, albeit complementary, assessment of the natural jurisprudential heritage of eighteenth-century British political economy. Specifically, the article attempts to map on to Hont’s thesis the Christian Stoic interpretation of Grotius and Pufendorf which has gained greater currency in recent years. In doing so, the paper argues that Grotius and Pufendorf’s contributions to the ‘unsocial sociability’ debate do not necessarily lead directly to the Scottish school of political economists, as is commonly assumed. Instead, it contends that a reconsideration of Grotius and Pufendorf as neo-Stoic theorists, particularly via scrutiny of their respective adaptations of the traditional Stoic theory of oikeiosis, steers us towards the heart of the early English ‘clerical’ Enlightenment.
Istvan Hont’s classic work on the theoretical links between the seventeenth-century natural jurists Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf and the eighteenth-century Scottish political economists remains a popular trope among intellectual and economic historians of various stamps. Despite this, a common criticism levelled at Hont remains his relative lack of engagement with the relationship between religion and economics in the early modern period. This paper challenges this aspect of Hont’s narrative by drawing attention to an alternative, albeit complementary, assessment of the natural jurisprudential heritage of eighteenth-century British political economy. Specifically, the article attempts to map on to Hont’s thesis the Christian Stoic interpretation of Grotius and Pufendorf which has gained greater currency in recent years. In doing so, the paper argues that Grotius and Pufendorf’s contributions to the ‘unsocial sociability’ debate do not necessarily lead directly to the Scottish school of political economists, as is commonly assumed. Instead, it contends that a reconsideration of Grotius and Pufendorf as neo-Stoic theorists, particularly via scrutiny of their respective adaptations of the traditional Stoic theory of oikeiosis, steers us towards the heart of the early English ‘clerical’ Enlightenment.
Research Interests: Intellectual History, Natural Law, Enlightenment, Intellectual History of Enlightenment, Anglicanism (Anglicanism), and 14 moreHistory of Sociability, Sociability, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, State of Nature, Joseph Butler, Neostoicism, "natural Law" Jurisprudence, Self-Love, Political Economy and History, Self Interest, Oikonomia, Christian political economy, and Josiah Tucker
Chapter Two of my completed PhD thesis in Intellectual History awarded in 2016, entitled ‘‘Providence and Political Economy’: Josiah Tucker’s Providential Argument for Free Trade’.
Research Interests:
Peter Xavier Price, who is based at the Sussex Centre for Intellectual History, responds to Neil Paul Cummins' 2010 book, 'Is the Human Species Special?: Why human-induced global warming could be in the interests of life'. He seeks to... more
Peter Xavier Price, who is based at the Sussex Centre for Intellectual History, responds to Neil Paul Cummins' 2010 book, 'Is the Human Species Special?: Why human-induced global warming could be in the interests of life'. He seeks to explore and challenge many of the epistemological suppositions undergirding the central ideas of 'Is the Human Species Special?'. Why, the author speculates, does the application of history play such a minor role in considerations of the supposed uniqueness of humanity? Likewise, can mankind's sense of its own historical nature pave the way towards a better informed and responsible future? Questions such as these, amongst many others, form the basis for this short book, in which humanity's eternal struggle to find inherent meaning in its surrounding world – as well as humanity's place within it – is reconsidered.