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...
In this carefully reasoned work, discovered after Michael Oakeshott's death in 1990 and here published for the first time, the preeminent political ph...
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...
The Vocabulary of a Modern European State is the companion volume to The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence and completes the enterprise of g...
Oakeshott's memorable lectures on the history of political thought, delivered each year at the London School of Economics, will now be 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...
Oakeshott's memorable lectures on the history of political thought, delivered each year at the London School of Economics, will now be available in...
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...
Rationalism in Politics, first published in 1962, has established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative political theorist in modern ...
Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) made his reputation as a political philosopher, but for a long time it seemed as if he had little interest in politics before 1945. His major pre-war work, Experience and its Modes (1933) was an examination of the nature of philosophy and its relation to other forms of thought that made almost no mention of politics. However, it has become increasingly clear that this initial judgment was misleading. A posthumous collection of early essays, Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life (1993), proved that political philosophy was a lifelong concern. Nevertheless, the...
Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) made his reputation as a political philosopher, but for a long time it seemed as if he had little interest in politics ...
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...
From the 1920s to the 1980s Oakeshott filled dozens of notebooks with his private reflections, both personal and intellectual. Their contents range...
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...
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...
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...
Michael Oakeshott's lifelong interest in religion and its relation to politics is made explicit in this collection of essays. It comprises four import...
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...
When it first appeared in 1933, Experience and its Modes was not considered a classic. But as philosophical fashion moved away from the analytic philo...
