THE INTELLECTUAL HISTORIAN
A monthly review of intellectual history and ideas
OCTOBER 2026 · 31 OCTOBER 2026
Judgement, Learning and Collective Life
Read this edition on the website
In this edition
Jasmine Starbuck: A No-Man Jury
Jack Thomson: Montaigne on Virtue and Learning
Derek van Voorst: The Novelty of the New
About the contributors
From the Editor: writing, listening, books and discussion
Editorial
How do we learn to judge well? This October edition brings together three essays that approach the question through literature and philosophy. Jasmine Starbuck reads Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian as an exploration of collective justice. Jack Thomson turns to Montaigne to consider why learning requires humility, integrity and responsibility. Derek van Voorst examines how the prefix “neo” shapes our understanding of intellectual continuity and change. Together, the essays ask how we judge arguments, traditions and the terms through which we understand them.
The full essays are published on the website, with their references and contributor details. Below you will find introductions to each, followed by a substantial monthly round-up of writing, podcasts, books and discussions from the editor.
A No-Man Jury
Collectivism and Justice in Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian
Jasmine Starbuck · October 2026 edition · 1,530 words
Ann Radcliffe’s novel contains no jury trial, yet Jasmine argues that its movement towards justice depends on collective judgement. Servants, guides, spectators and readers contribute forms of social knowledge that challenge the concentration of power in individual hands. Through the novel’s conversations and theatrical scenes, the essay considers how Gothic fiction makes legal and political ideas emotionally meaningful, and why such writing deserves the attention of intellectual historians.
Montaigne on Virtue, Learning and the Possession of One’s Mind
Jack Thomson · October 2026 edition · 1,018 words
What distinguishes understanding from the repetition of someone else’s knowledge? Jack explores Montaigne’s account of learning as a practice grounded in virtue. Humility makes the admission of error possible; integrity binds us to the arguments we profess. The tutor’s task is to cultivate judgement until the pupil can choose learning freely and take responsibility for a mind of their own. The essay follows the relationship between duty, affection and intellectual independence.
The Novelty of the New
Derek van Voorst · October 2026 edition · 1,423 words
When does a new label describe a genuine change in ideas, and when does it merely suggest an association? Derek examines the prefix “neo” across philosophical, religious and political traditions. His essay contrasts continuity, adaptation and reconstruction, asking whether familiar terminology identifies a shared intellectual inheritance or obscures important differences. It is a call for greater precision in defining the ideas we group together.
About the contributors
Jasmine Starbuck is an LLB graduate of Durham University and an MLitt graduate of the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on Law and Literature, particularly the literature of fear. She is developing a PhD proposal on nineteenth-century Gothic and biopolitical change, and works in criminal justice policy.
Jack Thomson is a Socratic educator and Director of Formation and Outreach at the Ruskin Centre for the Humanities. He holds an MPhil in Philosophy by Research from the University of Buckingham and co-hosts Beyond the Text. His interests include Great Books education, ethics, phenomenology and intellectual formation.
Derek van Voorst is a doctoral researcher at the University of St Andrews working in intellectual history and the history of political thought. His interests include intellectual history, political thought and the history of conservatism.
Read the full biographies and browse contributor work →
From the Editor
Samuel Woodall
This month’s contributions offer three different ways of thinking about judgement. Jasmine asks what fiction can reveal about collective justice; Jack considers the virtues that allow a learner to take responsibility for an argument. Derek asks whether the labels we use clarify intellectual change or conceal it. These questions reach beyond the works that occasion them. They invite us to consider how we learn to judge, whom we trust, and what happens when our confidence outruns our understanding. These concerns have also run through my own writing, the podcast and our reading discussions this month.
Recent writing and research
For readers new to the subject, What Does an Intellectual Historian Actually Study? offers a route into contextual interpretation and the relationship between texts and historical action. Alongside it, Foundational Paradigms considers the social contract, natural rights and popular sovereignty. These pieces provide starting points for exploring familiar political language as something with a history, rather than a set of definitions that has always meant the same thing.
My contemporary writing has included an essay on British support for Ukraine and The World in Fall. The latter sets out my argument about foreign influence, anti-liberal politics and the defence of liberal institutions; an accompanying podcast discussion introduces its themes. In my doctoral work, I continue to examine faction and political order through Rapin, Brown and Tucker, attending to the different circumstances in which each understood unity, disagreement and public interest.
Beyond the Text
October’s listening has moved from Montaigne’s reflections on experience and custom to Rousseau’s accounts of selfhood, dependence and education. Jack’s contribution to this issue sits particularly well beside our conversation on learning to live and die. The Rousseau series closes with Émile and the limits of independence, asking how education can cultivate freedom when the pupil’s environment remains under the tutor’s control.
Our Kant conversations develop these questions through enlightenment and intellectual independence, the limits of knowledge and freedom, duty and the categorical imperative. Each episode page offers a reading route into the discussion. You can begin with the question that interests you most and use the companion writing to pause over an argument before returning to the conversation.
Books, lectures and reviews
The month’s reviews include The Family Behind the Girl Scouts of America, which considers women’s authority, inherited privilege and reform. Elsewhere, Fashioning Childhood explores what Georgian children’s shoes can tell us about education, class and gender, while Whose Civilisation? considers the uses of classical models in arguments about empire and emancipation. Together, they widen the range of materials through which we can study ideas.
November’s scheduled book reviews will turn to The Debt of Free Men on 3 November, Kennedy’s Only Hero on 10 November, The Haunted Mind on 17 November and Uglification on 24 November. They will explore republican freedom, political heroism, testimony and the mind, and the place of beauty in ordinary life. Look out for them on the website as the month unfolds.
Reading and discussion
The Reading Club gives these arguments somewhere to be tested. Join the conversations on whether doubt makes us better judges, whether we can become free together or whether duty can make us free. Each offers a focused starting point: read a short passage, choose one question and bring a reason or example. You do not need to arrive with a settled interpretation.
Looking ahead
The next monthly edition is planned for 30 November. Between issues, new essays, reviews and podcast companions will continue to appear across the sites. Thank you to Jasmine, Jack and Derek for their contributions, and to everyone reading, listening and taking part. I hope this issue gives you something to return to, a text to explore more closely, or a question worth discussing with someone else.
Edited by Samuel Woodall
The Intellectual Historian · Published on the last day of each month.
Explore the newsletter, Beyond the Text and the History of Ideas Reading Club.
Contributions express their authors’ views. Enquiries: samuel.woodall@buckingham.ac.uk.
Cite this edition
Woodall, Samuel, ed. “The Intellectual Historian: October 2026.” The Intellectual Historian, October 31, 2026. https://theintellectualhistorian.com/?p=2543.
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