Michael Oakeshott

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 and Other Essays

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 nota 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."

On Human Conduct

Michael Oakeshott, the foremost British political philosopher of the twentieth century, died in 1990, leaving a substantial collection of unpublished material. Yale University Press is continuing to make available the best of these illuminating works. In this polished and hitherto unknown work, Oakeshott argues that modern politics was constituted out of a debate, persistent through centuries of European political experience down to our own day, over the question "What should governments do?" According to Oakeshott, two different answers have dominated our thought since the fifteenth century. One, exemplified by such thinkers as Rousseau and Marx, expresses a belief in the capacity of human beings to control, design, and monitor all aspects of social and political life, a belief fostered by the intoxicating increase in power available to governments in modern times. On the other hand, sceptics such as Montaigne, Pascal, and Hobbes argued that governments cannot, in principle, produce perfection and that we should prevent concentrations of power that may result in tyrannies that oppress the dignity of the human spirit. Oakeshott exposes the pitfalls of both positions and shows the value of a middle ground that incorporates scepticism with enough faith to avoid total quietism. Readers of Oakeshott will find here the thinking that lies behind his famous definition of politics as "the pursuit of intimations.".

The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism

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.

The Voice of Liberal Learning

Una de las ideas seminales del pensamiento de Michael Oakeshott es que no es posible reducir todos los modos de conocimiento a un sistema único y abarcador. Desarrollada en 'La voz del aprendizaje liberal', ya editada por Katz editores y Liberty Fund, esta idea significa, para Oakeshott, que la filosofía y la historia son, tanto como la ciencia y la matemática, "lenguajes, más que literaturas", es decir, modos específicos de abordar e interpretar el mundo. Y es en la perspectiva del diálogo entre esos lenguajes como se realiza la auténtica libertad. Así, para Oakeshott el desafío específico de los historiadores es dejar de lado cualquier preocupación de orden práctico o ideológico en su abordaje del pasado, pues una de las mayores ilusiones del ser humano es la creencia en sistemas que lo llevarán a la perfección final en una tierra prometida. Un desafío, el que el autor propone, extremadamente difícil, dado que en general la mirada retrospectiva está menos interesada en la historia que en una "política retrospectiva", pero que él asume en 'Sobre la historia', donde aborda temas fundamentales de la experiencia humana: la naturaleza de la historia, el imperio de la ley, la lucha por el poder como dimensión inherente a la condición humana, la futilidad de las modernas utopías políticas. En su conjunto, los cinco ensayos aquí reunidos muestran de modo elocuente la perspectiva distanciada que el autor mismo propone para el trabajo del historiador. Tres de ellos se ocupan de temas de historiografía; el capítulo cuarto, "El concepto de rule of law", analiza aspectos esenciales de lo que considera como una relación ideal entre los hombres, y en el ensayo final, "La Torre de Babel", ilustra la tesis de que la pluralidad de "lenguajes" constituye la esencia misma de la vida civilizada: los pueblos de Babel no se pierden en la ininteligibilidad mutua sino que, al contrario, se asocian para llevar adelante una empresa común.

Sobre la historia y otros ensayos

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.

The Vocabulary of a Modern European State

Tras la publicación del primer volumen de las ±Lecciones de Historia del Pensamiento Político, presentamos ahora su continuación. Bajo la rúbrica de ±El carácter del Estado Europeo Moderno se agrupa la segunda parte de las Lecciones impartidas por M. Oakeshott en la London School of Economics, cuyo objeto principal es explicar cómo surge la experiencia política conocida como Estado en la Europa moderna y las circunstancias que lo rodean. Al igual que en el primero de los dos volúmenes que componen esta serie de Lecciones, Oakeshott va a continuar empleando el término ±experiencia como concepto sobre el que vertebra su explicación. En este caso, y a diferencia del volumen anterior, solo dará cuenta de una experiencia: el Estado de la Europa Moderna. Es esta realidad, el Estado, y su contexto, la Europa Moderna, lo que va a constituir el foco de su explicación. Como en casi todos sus escritos, tanto anteriores como posteriores a los años en los que ocupó la Cátedra de Ciencia Política en la LSE, si hay algo que podamos destacar a priori es la originalidad y la capacidad de sugerencia de su interpretación. Bien por su condición de historiador que analiza la realidad política o bien por su personalísima interpretación de la realidad estatal, Oakeshott es capaz de presentarnos un fenómeno bien conocido, y estudiado, el nacimiento del Estado Moderno, de una forma ±creativamente novedosa.

Lecturas de historia del pensamiento político II : el carácter del estado moderno europeo

En este libro, coordinado y traducido por el prof. Francisco Javier Atanes se presenta, por primera vez en lengua española, las Lecciones de Historia del Pensamiento Político del filósofo británico Michael Oakeshott. Ocupó durante tres décadas la prestigiosa posición de Chair of Political Science en la London School of Economics, y son estas mismas lecciones una síntesis de su trayectoria docente en dicha institución. En estas páginas encontrará el lector una reflexión profunda y sugerente sobre el nacimiento de la experiencia política en Europa. Desde los griegos a la Edad Media, con un lenguaje sencillo y directo comparte Oakeshott su visión con nosotros del modo en que las diferentes sociedades se han articulado para conformar eso que él mismo, siguiendo a Aristóteles, denomina el ars bene vivendi. En esta obra se hace evidente la doble condición de Oakeshott; por un lado, su formación académica como historiador que se pone de manifiesto en un profundo conocimiento de la Historia misma, así fechas, protagonistas y eventos se suceden para ser presentados en una sucesión coherente de acontecimientos desde la fundación de Roma hasta la caída de Constantinopla; y por otra parte, su vocación de filósofo que le mueve a no quedar satisfecho con la simple enumeración o presentación de las fechas, eventos y protagonistas sino que le exige el arriesgarse a interpretar, analizar y proponer. Todo ello compone una visión sugerente y personalísima de un hecho clave en la historia de la Humanidad: el nacimiento del Estado.

Voumen I: Desde Grecia hasta la Edad Media

Lecciones de Historia del Pensamiento Político

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. A new editorial introduction 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.

Essays and Reviews 1926–51

The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence

Luke O'Sullivan

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.

Michael Oakeshott: Notebooks, 1922-86

This highly readable new collection of thirty pieces by Michael Oakeshott, almost all of which are previously unpublished, covers every decade of his intellectual career, and adds significantly to his contributions to the philosophy of historical understanding and political philosophy, as well as to the philosophy of education and aesthetics. The essays were intended mostly for lectures or seminars, and are consequently in an informal style that will be accessible to new readers as well as to those already well acquainted with Oakeshott’s works. Early pieces include a long essay ‘On the Relations of Philosophy, Poetry, and Reality’, and Oakeshott’s comments on ‘The Cambridge School of Political Science’ through which he himself had passed as an undergraduate. The collection also reproduces a substantial wartime essay ‘On Peace with Germany’. There are two new essays on the philosophy of education, and the essay which gives the work its title, ‘What is History?’, is just one of over half a dozen discussions of the nature of historical knowledge. Oakeshott’s later sceptical, ‘hermeneutic’, thought is also well represented by pieces such as ‘What is Political Theory?’ and ‘The Emergence of the History of Thought.’ Reviews of books by English and European contemporaries such as Butterfield, Hayek, Voegelin, and Arendt also help to place him in context more clearly than before. The book will be indispensable for all Oakeshott’s readers, no matter which area of his thought concerns them most.

and Other Essays

What Is History?

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.

Hobbes on Civil Association

A collection of 6 volumes of Oakeshott's work: Notebooks, 1922-86, Early Political Writings 1925-30, The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence, Vocabulary of a Modern European State, Lectures in the History of Political Thought, and What is History?

Michael Oakeshott Selected Writings Collection

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

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