The political thought of Richard Hooker: authority, experience and order

Abstract

The thesis is an attempt to provide a more comprehensive account of the context and character of Hooker’s argument in, the Ecclesiastical Polity than has hitherto been presented. The preface outlines the problems involved in such an examination. Part one includes "both a short examination of how distinctive attitudes to change colour political argument (chapter one) and an account of Hooker's own response to a radical attitude to change (chapter two). Part Two provides a very compressed narrative of the progress of reformed religion in England (chapter three) and of Hooker's composition of the Ecclesiastical Polity (chapter four). Part Three endeavours both to examine the nature of Calvinist thought (chapter five) and to describe Hooker's reaction to the movement itself (chapter six). Part four investigates Hooker's presuppositions about God and His Intelligible Universe (chapter seven), Reason and Conduct (chapter eight), and natural Law and Political Society (chapter nine). Chapter ten (Metaphor and practical Argument) represents an attempt both to extend and to summarize my account of the character of Hooker's thought. Part Five opens with a general investigation of the place of authority and tradition in the area of what Hooker's terms 'things indifferent.’ This is illustrated more particularly in the Interpretation of Scripture (chapter twelve), in the public worship of the Christian community (chapters thirteen, fourteen and fifteen), and in regard to the 'power of dominion' in Commonwealth and Church (chapters sixteen and seventeen). The conclusion endeavours to draw together the various strands of Hooker's argument and to make a final comment on the nature of this argument.