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Kliv in i en oändlig värld av stories

Lyssna när som helst, var som helst

Wendell John Coats Jr.

This book is a collection of eight (mostly) recent essays on the work of the 20th-century English philosophic essayist, Michael Oakeshott. Six of them advance the view in different ways that Oakeshott's multifarious lifework may be understood as variations on a singular insight — that the structure of experiential reality is 'creative' or 'poetic’, with the form and content (the how and what) of thought and activity occurring simultaneously and conditioning one another reciprocally; and that this experiential structure has specifiable cultural, political and legal ramifications. In advancing and illustrating this viewpoint, comparisons and contrasts are drawn with medieval nominalism, philosophic idealism, Cartesianism, modernity, post-modernism, Chinese Daoism and with the views of thinkers such as Sir Henry Maine, Charles McIlwain, M.B. Foster, Leo Strauss, A.C. Graham, Friedrich Hayek, Efraim Podoksik, John Liddington, and others. Included also is an essay on the educational views of Oakeshott and A.N. Whitehead, and another on Oakeshott, Max Weber and Carl Schmitt and the relationship between politics and armed force. A very brief concluding postscript asserts the continued relevance (as a corrective) of Oakeshott’s views on the creative structure of human experience in an age of ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI).

Andrews UK

British Idealist Studies 1: Oakeshott

Michael Oakeshott as a Philosopher of the "Creative", and Other Essays

Luke O’Sullivan

This book challenges the common view that Michael Oakeshott was mainly important as a political philosopher by offering the first comprehensive study of his ideas on history. It argues that Oakeshott's writings on the philosophy of history mark him out as the most successful of the philosophers who attempted to establish historical study as an autonomous form of thought during the twentieth century. It also contends that his work on the history of political thought is best seen in the context of debates over the origins of the liberal state. For the first time, extensive use has been made of unpublished material in the collection of Oakeshott's papers at the LSE, resulting in an intellectual biography that should be of interest both to first-time students and those already familiar with his published works.

Oakeshott on History

Corey Abel

This collection of recent scholarship on the thought of Michael Oakeshott includes essays by both distinguished and established authors as well as a fresh crop of younger talent. Together, they address the meanings of Oakeshott's conservatism through the lenses of his ideas on religion, history, and tradition, and explore his relationships to philosophers ranging from Hume to Ryle, Cavell, and others. The collection assigns no single or final meaning to Oakeshott's conservatism, but finds in him a number of possibilities for thinking fruitfully about what conservatism might mean, when it is no longer considered as a doctrine, but as a habit or a turn of mind.

The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott's Conservatism

Ian Tregenza

Michael Oakeshott is widely recognised to be one of the most original political philosophers of the twentieth century. He also developed a very influential interpretation of the ideas of the great seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes. While many commentators have noted the importance of Hobbes for understanding Oakeshott's thought itself, this is the first book to provide a systematic interpretation of Oakeshott's philosophy by paying close attention to all facets of Oakeshott's reading of Hobbes.
On the surface, Oakeshott, the philosophical idealist and critic of rationalism in politics, would seem to have little in common with Hobbes, who is often regarded as a classic materialist and rationalist philosopher. This work shows, however, that despite appearances, there are many basic affinities between the two thinkers and that Oakeshott brought to the surface aspects of Hobbes's thought that had previously been overlooked by Hobbes scholars.
The development of Oakeshott's own theory is shown to mirror changes in his reading of Hobbes and many of the distinctive features of Oakeshott's thought including the modal and sceptical conception of human knowledge, the 'morality of individuality', the theory of civil association, and the critique of rationalism all find a fascinating focal point in his writings on Hobbes. Some attention is also paid to Oakeshott's religious ideas, indicating what they share with Hobbes's philosophy of religion. The book situates Oakeshott's reading in relation to some other important twentieth century interpretations of Hobbes and examines its significance for broader debates in political theory and the history of ideas.

Michael Oakeshott on Hobbes

Suvi Soininen

This book presents a comprehensive study of Oakeshott's conception of political activity. The author first examines Oakeshott in the contexts of liberal, conservative and Idealist thought, and then presents a detailed interpretation of the change in his conception of politics in the context of British postwar political thought. It is argued that Oakeshott's conception of political activity shifted from a near contempt of politics towards the applauding of politics as a deliberative and reflective activity. The development is disclosed by examining the change in his key concepts, such as authority and tradition. Accordingly, some rather unexpected aspects of Oakeshott's thought, such as his close relationship to the linguistic turn, appear. The author argues that although Oakeshott cannot exactly be classified as belonging to that group of political philosophers for whom politics represents a superior human activity, his later work presents an important and original view of politics as an art of contingency.

From a 'Necessary Evil' to the Art of Contingency

Glenn Worthington

Much of the scholarly attention attracted by Michael Oakeshott's writings has focused upon his philosophical characterisation of the relations that constitute moral association in the modern world. A less noticed, but equally significant, aspect of Oakeshott's moral philosophy is his account of the type of person (or persona) required to enter into and enjoy moral association. Oakeshott's best known characterisation of the persona best suited to moral association occurs in his identification of a 'morality of the individual'. The book argues that Oakeshott's characterisations of religious and poetic experience provide a more detailed account of the type of persona that emerged in response to what it perceived as an invitation to participate in moral association in the modern world.

Religious and Poetic Experience in the Thought of Michael Oakeshott

This volume brings together a diverse range of perspectives reflecting the international appeal and multi-disciplinary interest that Oakeshott now attracts. The essays offer a variety of approaches to Oakeshott's thought - testament to the abiding depth, originality, suggestiveness and complexity of his writings. The essays include contributions from well-known Oakeshott scholars along with ample representation from a new generation. As a collection these essays challenge Oakeshott's reputation as merely a 'critic of social planning'.
Contributors include Josiah Lee Auspitz, Debra Candreva, Wendell John Coats Jr., Douglas DenUyl, George Feaver, Paul Franco, Richard Friedman, Timothy Fuller, Robert Grant, Eric S. Kos, Leslie Marsh, Kenneth Minogue, Terry Nardin, Keith Sutherland, Martyn Thompson and Gerhard Wolmarans.

The Intellectual Legacy of Michael Oakeshott

Andrew Sullivan

In this book Andrew Sullivan examines Oakeshott's transition from his original emphasis on philosophy as providing what was ultimately satisfactory in experience to his later emphasis on practical life. This satisfaction is best achieved by a fusion of the modes of poetry and practice, leading the author to examine Oakeshott's view of religious life as the consummation of practice in its most poetic incarnation. The book also examines how the conception of practice is applied in Oakeshott's political writings, focusing on the notion of civil association.

Intimations Pursued

Michael Minch

his book offers a description, explanation, and evaluation of Michael Oakeshott's democratic theory. He was not a democratic theorist as such, but as a twentieth-century English political theorist for whom liberal theory held deep importance, his thought often engaged democratic theory implicitly, and many times did so explicitly. The author's project penetrates two renewals. The first is the revitalization of interest in Oakeshott, and the second is the renewal of democratic theory which began in the 1980s. In respect to this latter renewal, the book engages the deliberative turn in democratic theory. These revivals create the context for this new look at Oakeshott. To state the matter as a problem, one might say that in light of new and fecund democratic theory, it is a problem for political theory if one of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century is left out of the discourse insofar as he has something relevant to say about deliberative democracy. It is of no small importance that almost all the work in democratic theory being done these days is of the deliberative/discursive kind, or responses to it. That is, deliberative theory is driving the agenda of democratic theory. The author argues that Oakeshott does indeed have something relevant to say which is applicable to this democratic theory.

The Democratic Theory of Michael Oakeshott

Eric Steven Kos

This book addresses a question fundamental for Oakeshott throughout his life, which is what we are doing when we read and discuss some memorable work in the history of political thought. The approach the book takes to Oakeshott's response to this question is of particular interest in that it explores in detail extensive notes he made on the beginnings of political philosophy in ancient Greece in an unpublished set of notebooks in which he recorded his thoughts on many different subjects throughout his life. In addition, the book gives contemporary significance to Oakeshott's interpretation of the history of political thought by using it to confront a series of contemporary challenges to the study of the history of political thought and to the study of the 'great books.' In particular, Oakeshott's distinction between 'various kinds or levels of political thought' is carefully analyzed, as is also the extent of his agreement and disagreement with Quentin Skinner. In the concluding chapter, the author relates Oakeshott's view of the nature of the history of political thought to his well-known description of philosophy as 'conversation', describing it as an introduction to that conversation.