The Unity-Idea According to Quentin Skinner: A Lesson in the Use of Educational Concepts in the United Kingdom and Italy

This article reflects on the importance of Quentin Skinner's method for historical-educational research. This work explores some of its key concepts: ideas as “tools” used for persuasive argumentation, the heuristic inconsistency of the concept of influence, the unity-idea understood as an umbrella category that involves abstractions, the concept of context and the technique of intertextuality. Through a review of studies that have welcomed Skinner’s methodology, the article also highlights how, both in the European and American contexts, there is a growing interest in educational research towards his investigative strategy. The analysis then focuses on two case studies on the concept of unity-idea: one on the idea of progressivism, widespread in the British tradition, and one on the idea of Christianity, developed in Italian personalist pedagogy. These two terms are similar “tools” in standardizing the complex educational reality, bringing different meanings and attitudes closer together. Skinner's analytical approach warns against this operation, because the use of general concepts, sometimes useful and necessary, can become an obstacle to the understanding of authentic meanings. Excessive trust in universal principles without a reflection that enters into historical complexity can lead to an ethical intellectualism for which a good theory is sufficient to change and improve practices. The valorization of historically solid meanings is a guarantee for an authentically transformative educational theory and practice.