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To those weary and wary of the cacophony about what's wrong with
education in America and what ought to be done about it,
Oakeshott's voice beckons. As usual, his approach to the subject is
subtle, comprehensive, and radical -- in the sense of summoning
readers to the root of the matter. That root, Oakeshott believed,
is the very nature of learning itself and, concomitantly, the means
(as distinct from the method) by which the life of learning is
discovered, cultivated, and pursued. As Oakeshott has written,
"This, then, is what we are concerned with: adventures in human
self-understanding. Not the bare protestation that a human being is
a self-conscious, reflective intelligence and that he does not live
by bread alone, but the actual enquiries, utterances, and actions
in which human beings have expressed their understanding of the
human condition. This is the stuff of what has come to be called a
liberal' education -- liberal' because it is liberated from the
distracting business of satisfying contingent wants". Includes a
foreword by Timothy Fuller that reiterates the timelessness of
Oakeshott's reflections amid the continuing clamour that
characterises discourse about liberal education.
"Rationalism in Politics, " first published in 1962, has
established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative
political theorist in modern Britain. This expanded collection of
essays astutely points out the limits of "reason" in rationalist
politics.Oakeshott criticizes ideological schemes to reform society
according to supposedly "scientific" or rationalistic principles
that ignore the wealth and variety of human experience.
"Rationalism in politics," says Oakeshott, "involves a
misconception with regard to the nature of human knowledge."
History has shown that it produces unexpected, often disastrous
results. "Having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of
his society, and denied the value of any education more extensive
than a training in a technique of analysis," the Rationalist
succeeds only in undermining the institutions that hold civilized
society together. In this regard, rationalism in politics is "a
corruption of the mind."Timothy Fuller is Professor of Political
Science and Dean of the College at Colorado College.
"Rationalism in Politics, " first published in 1962, has
established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative
political theorist in modern Britain. This expanded collection of
essays astutely points out the limits of "reason" in rationalist
politics.Oakeshott criticizes ideological schemes to reform society
according to supposedly "scientific" or rationalistic principles
that ignore the wealth and variety of human experience.
"Rationalism in politics," says Oakeshott, "involves a
misconception with regard to the nature of human knowledge."
History has shown that it produces unexpected, often disastrous
results. "Having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of
his society, and denied the value of any education more extensive
than a training in a technique of analysis," the Rationalist
succeeds only in undermining the institutions that hold civilized
society together. In this regard, rationalism in politics is "a
corruption of the mind."Timothy Fuller is Professor of Political
Science and Dean of the College at Colorado College.
Oakeshott's memorable lectures on the history of political thought,
delivered each year at the London School of Economics, are now
available in print for the first time as Volume II of his "Selected
Writings". Based on manuscripts in the LSE archive for 1966-67, the
last year of Oakeshott's tenure as Professor of Political Science,
these thirty lectures deal with Greek, Roman, mediaeval, and modern
European political thought in a uniquely accessible manner.
Scholars familiar with Oakeshott's work will recognize his own
ideas subtly blended with an exposition carefully crafted for an
undergraduate audience; those discovering Oakeshott for the first
time will find an account of the subject that remains illuminating
and provocative.
A highly readable new collection of almost thirty pieces by Michael
Oakeshott, almost all of which are previously unpublished, covering
every decade of his intellectual career. The essays were intended
mostly for lectures or seminars and retain an informal style that
makes them accessible to new readers as well as those already
familiar with Oakeshott's work. The book will be indispensable for
all Oakeshott's readers, no matter which area of his thought
concerns them most.
This volume brings together for the first time over a hundred of
Oakeshott's essays and reviews, written between 1926 and 1951, that
until now have remained scattered through a variety of scholarly
journals, periodicals and newspapers. There is a new editorial
introduction that explains how these pieces, including the lengthy
essay on the philosophical nature of jurisprudence that occupies an
important position in Oakeshott's work, illuminate his other
published writings. The collection throws new light on the context
of his thought by placing him in dialogue with a number of other
major figures in the humanities and social sciences during this
period, including Leo Strauss, A.N. Whitehead, Karl Mannheim,
Herbert Butterfield, E.H. Carr, Gilbert Ryle, and R.G. Collingwood.
When it first appeared in 1933, Experience and its Modes was not
considered a classic. But as philosophical fashion moved away from
the analytic philosophy of the 1930s, this work began to seem ahead
of its time. Arguing that experience is 'modal', in the sense that
we always have a theoretical or practical perspective on the world,
Michael Oakeshott explores the nature of philosophical experience
and its relationship to three of the most important 'modes' of
non-philosophical experience - science, history and practice -
seeking to establish the autonomy and superiority of philosophy. In
recognition of its enduring importance, this book is presented in a
fresh series livery for a new generation of readers, featuring a
specially commissioned preface written by Paul Franco.
This volume contains two previously unpublished works, a manuscript
entitled 'A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of
political philosophy', and the first version of a course of
lectures on 'The philosophical approach to politics' that Oakeshott
gave between 1928 and 1930.
From the 1920s to the 1980s Oakeshott filled dozens of notebooks
with his private reflections, both personal and intellectual. Their
contents range from aphorisms to miniature essays, forming a unique
record of his intellectual trajectory over his entire career. This
volume makes them accessible in print for the first time, drawing
together a host of his previously inaccessible observations on
politics, philosophy, art, education, and much else besides.
Religion in particular emerges as an ongoing concern for him in a
way that is not visible from his published works.
The notebooks also provide a unique source of insight into
Oakeshott's musings on life, thanks to the hitherto unsuspected
existence of the series of 'Belle Dame notebooks that were written
in the late 1920s and early 1930s but which only came to light two
decades after his death. At the same period in which he was
developing the concepts that would form Experience and its Modes,
Oakeshott s personal life lead him to reflect extensively on love
and death, themes that highlight his enduring romantic
affinities.
Accompanied by an original editorial introduction, the volume
allows readers to see for themselves exactly which works Oakeshott
used in compiling each of his notebooks, providing a much clearer
record of his intellectual influences than has previously been
available. It will be an essential addition to the library of his
works for all those interested in his ideas."
When it first appeared in 1933, Experience and its Modes was not
considered a classic. But as philosophical fashion moved away from
the analytic philosophy of the 1930s, this work began to seem ahead
of its time. Arguing that experience is 'modal', in the sense that
we always have a theoretical or practical perspective on the world,
Michael Oakeshott explores the nature of philosophical experience
and its relationship to three of the most important 'modes' of
non-philosophical experience - science, history and practice -
seeking to establish the autonomy and superiority of philosophy. In
recognition of its enduring importance, this book is presented in a
fresh series livery for a new generation of readers, featuring a
specially commissioned preface written by Paul Franco.
Michael Oakeshott's lifelong interest in religion and its relation
to politics is made explicit in this collection of essays. It
comprises four important unpublished pieces, together with a
further six which originally appeared in remote and inaccessible
journals, and provides an illuminating complement to Oakeshott's
best-known writings. Much of the collection emanates from his early
career, and reveals not only his initial intellectual
preoccupations, but the nature of his religious outlook, the moral
convictions that governed the life he himself lived, and his sense
of what it means to live 'religiously' in the world. What the
essays disclose is a view of a moral life without fixities, but
with choices of conduct in accord with one's self-understanding.
Faith lies not in resisting but exploring life's contingencies,
seeking an imaginative response to the events that come one's way.
Oakeshott's writing is persuasive and compelling, and the essays
offer a calm and civil dissent from the dominant rationalism of our
time. In a substantial introduction, Timothy Fuller provides the
first full explanation of Oakeshott's religious ideas, setting them
within their philosophic context.He shows how, in these essays,
Oakeshott elaborated the implications of 'Experience and its
Modes', worked out his political theory as summarized in
'Rationalism in Politics', and gradually assembled his own
philosophical account of the ideal that European civilization had
made concrete in history - civil association under the rule of law
- and to which he gave definitive expression in 'On Human Conduct'.
Michael Oakeshott was born in 1901 and educated at the Universities
of Cambridge, Tubingen and Marburg. A fellow of Gonville &
Caius College, Cambridge, he was appointed to the chair of
Political Science at the London School of Economics in 1950. He
died in 1990. His publications include 'Experience and its Modes'
(1933), and edition of Hobbes's 'Leviathan' (1946), 'Rationalism in
Politics' (1962), 'On Human Conduct' (1975) and 'The Voice of
Liberal Learning' (1989). Timothy Fuller was Dean of the College,
Colorado College, and editor of 'The Voice of Liberal Learning:
Michael Oakeshott on Education'.
"The Vocabulary of a Modern European State" is the companion volume
to "The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence" and completes the
enterprise of gathering together Oakeshott's previously scattered
essays and reviews. As with all the other volumes in the series it
contains an entirely new editorial introduction explaining how the
writings it contains find their place in his work as a whole. It
covers the years 1952 to 1988, the period during which Oakeshott
wrote his definitive work, "On Human Conduct". The essay from which
the volume takes its title was intended as a companion piece to the
third part of the latter work, and is just one of over sixty pieces
that it includes. The volume draws together critical responses to
works by major philosophers, historians, and political theorists of
his own generation such as Bertrand de Jouvenel, Herbert Marcuse,
and Michael Polanyi as well as to some major figures of current
scholarship such as Quentin Skinner and Roger Scruton.
Of Michael Oakeshott and his interest in Thomas Hobbes, Professor
Paul Franco has written, "The themes Oakeshott stresses in his
interpretation of Hobbes are . . . skepticism about the role of
reason in politics, allegiance to the morality of individuality as
opposed to any sort of collectivism, and the principle of a
noninstrumental, nonpurposive mode of political association,
namely, civil association." Of Hobbes's Leviathan, Oakeshott has
written, ""Leviathan" is the greatest, perhaps the sole,
masterpiece of political philosophy written in the English
language." "Hobbes on Civil Association" consists of Oakeshott's
four principal essays on Hobbes and on the nature of civil
association as civil association pertains to ordered liberty. The
essays are "Introduction to "Leviathan"" (1946); "The Moral Life in
the Writings of Thomas Hobbes" (1960); "Dr. Leo Strauss on Hobbes"
(1937); and, ""Leviathan" A Myth" (1947). The foreword remarks the
place of these essays within Oakeshott's entire corpus.Michael
Oakeshott (1901-1990) was Professor of Political Science at the
London School of Economics and the author of many essays, among
them those collected in "Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays"
and "On History and Other Essays, " both now published by Liberty
Fund.Paul Franco is a Professor in the Department of Government at
Bowdoin College.
In this carefully reasoned work, discovered after Michael
Oakeshott's death in 1990 and here published for the first time,
the preeminent political philosopher describes the fundamental
dichotomy that has divided discussion of the role of government in
Europe since the Renaissance. Oakeshott exposes the weaknesses of
each opposing position and proposes a middle ground, incorporating
some scepticism and some faith. By general consensus, Oakeshott is
the most striking and original British political thinker of the
century...Anyone interested in the nature of politics and
government will find this book of interest, and many will want to
direct their senior students to it as an accessible introduction to
Oakeshott's thought.-William Christian, University of Guelph,
Perspectives on Political Science The Politics of Faith and the
Politics of Scepticism is concerned to trace the deepest and most
permanent features of the modern European political landscape over
the last five hundred years, and this it does in an original,
insightful, and frequently eloquent manner. We are fortunate that
the book has finally seen the light of day.-Paul Franco, Bowdoin
College, Political Theory We are grateful to the editor Tim Fuller
for making available this little gem that combines philosophical
insight and historical investigation in the exposure of the two
'styles' of modern European politics, without the elaborate prose
to which Oakeshott has accustomed his readers: the absence of the
typical flamboyant style that characterizes Oakeshott's published
works, enables us to grasp his line of thought in the making and
renders his arguments crystal clear...A sublime mememto.-Giovanni
Giorgini, Political Studies
On Human Conduct is composed of three connected essays. Each has its own concern: the first with theoretical understanding, and with human conduct in general; the second with an ideal mode of human relationship which the author has called civil association; and the third with that ambiguous, historic association commonly called a modern European state. Running through the work is Professor Oakshott's belief in philosophical reflection as an adventure: the adventure of one who seeks to understand in other terms what he already understands, and where the understanding is sought is a disclosure of the conditions of the understanding enjoyed and not a substitute for it. Its most appropriate expression is an essay, which, he writes, 'does not dissemble the conditionality of the conclusions it throws up and although it may enlighten it does not instruct.'
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