Thomas More’s Hermeneutic Politics (original) (raw)

Thomas More’s Utopia is often portrayed either as a work of bold political radicalism or as subtle, cautionary conservatism. While the scholars who have contributed to these opposing accounts of More’s dialogue offer a number of profound insights, they have also inadvertently obscured crucial philosophical features of his political thought. This essay argues that More’s Utopia should be read as advancing a hermeneutic politics—that is, a politics emphasizing the contingency of the historical and cultural meanings that constitute social life while nonetheless retaining an anthropology of human limits. Reading Utopia as a fusion of hermeneutic insight and anthropological limits clarifies More’s deeply original notions of social ontology, normative critique, and humanistic authority.