Abstract

In Thomas More on statesmanship Gerard Wegemer challenges accounts of More’s thought by Richard Marius and Alistair Fox, who argue that uncertainty characterizes much of More’s work and thinking. While that approach underlines the complex nature of More’s intellectual inquiries, it does not always make sufficient room for his pre-intellectual certainties about God and self. Wegemer is concerned to demonstrate that those certainties formed More’s comprehensively developed philosophy of statesmanship. This thesis has two shortcomings: it leaves little room for the very problematic nature of More’s intellectual life; and it threatens to replace More the man with an ideology that may not be his own.