civil association

civitas cupiditatis

classicism

conservatism

conversation of mankind

government

morality of ideals

perennial politics

philosophy of practical experience

poetry

politics of faith

rationalism

religion

Rene Descartes

tradition

nationality

British

Christianity

political ideology

conservative

occupation / innovator as

philosopher

political theorist

innovator in the field of

aesthetics

philosophy of education

philosophy of history

philosophy of law

philosophy of religion

university teacher

political scientist

historian

scientific organization

British Academy

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

is on our radar. Try again later or consider contributing!

 achieves its beauty as it is abraded and rubbed away, when it falls into ruin.

Classicism achieves its beauty as it is abraded and rubbed away, when it falls into ruin. the bird, the flower, the tree Intuition can only operate by an immediate contact with the thing. In poetry what in logic are called subjective and objective are united. There is no observer and thing observed, both are one; the poet is the bird, the flower, the tree, the Pope (Browning in “The Ring and the Book”), the ship (Coleridge in “The Ancient Mariner”), and anything else to which he is able to join himself. And if this union does not take place there can be no poetry.

is a disposition to enjoy what is available rather than to look for something else.

For Oakeshott, conservatism is not a credo, a body of principles, or an ideology. It is disposition to enjoy what is available rather than to look for something else (p. 168). Let innovation be within the limits of knowledge and probability, for people really seldom know what they are doing. Innovation under gradualism is the procedure of the conservative... the innovator must prove there will be some benefit... innovation should resemble growth... it should be aimed at a specific defect to be cured... it should be slow enough in pace for one to observe consequences and make adjustments... and finally innovation is important and it should be limited to what is intended (p. 172). Rules and their stability are important, and apparently they may be adopted in the sense of a premeditated goal (p. 181). For the conservative, government is limited in that it provides general rules of conduct or regulation, and people are permitted the enjoyment of making their own choices. Government should not be an instrument to inflame the passions of men... rather it must strive for moderation not because moderation is a virtue or a truth about men but because, pragmatically speaking, moderation is essential if men are to escape being locked in an encounter of mutual frustration (p. 192). Government moderation provides for us the skepticism for which we do not have the time or inclination (p. 193).

is a preference for the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

To be conservative . . . is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

is not contradictory if one is conservative in respect of government and radical in respect of almost every other activity.

But what I hope I have made clear is that it is not at all inconsistent to be conservative in respect of government and radical in respect of almost every other activity. And, in my opinion, there is more to be learnt about this disposition from Montaigne, Pascal, Hobbes, and Hume than from Burke or Bentham.

's credo is innovation under gradualism. It should be slow enough in pace for one to observe consequences and make adjustments... and finally innovation is important and it should be limited to what is intended.

Innovation under gradualism is the procedure of the conservative... the innovator must prove there will be some benefit... innovation should resemble growth... it should be aimed at a specific defect to be cured... it should be slow enough in pace for one to observe consequences and make adjustments... and finally innovation is important and it should be limited to what is intended (p. 172). Rules and their stability are important, and apparently they may be adopted in the sense of a premeditated goal (p. 181).

is limited in that it provides general rules of conduct or regulation, and people are permitted the enjoyment of making their own choices. It should not be an instrument to inflame the passions of men.

For the conservative, government is limited in that it provides general rules of conduct or regulation, and people are permitted the enjoyment of making their own choices. Government should not be an instrument to inflame the passions of men... rather it must strive for moderation not because moderation is a virtue or a truth about men but because, pragmatically speaking, moderation is essential if men are to escape being locked in an encounter of mutual frustration (p. 192). Government moderation provides for us the skepticism for which we do not have the time or inclination (p. 193).

is tasked not to be an instrument to inflame the passions of men... rather it must strive for moderation, because government moderation provides for us the skepticism for which we do not have the time or inclination.

is a genre in which subjective and objective are united. There is no observer and thing observed, both are one; the poet is the bird, the flower, the tree. . . And if this union does not take place there can be no poetry.

is the most remarkable intellectual fashion of post-renaissance europe.

Oakeshott (1962a:1) characterizes rationalism as 'the most remarkable intellectual fashion of post-Renaissance Europe.'

is simply life itself, life dominated by the belief that its value is in the present, not merely in the past or the future, that if we lose ourselves we lose all.

Religion is not, as some would persuade us, an interest attached to life, a subsidiary activity... nor is it a power which governs life from the outside with a, no doubt divine, but certainly incomprehensible, sanction for its authority. It is simply life itself, life dominated by the belief that its value is in the present, not merely in the past or the future, that if we lose ourselves we lose all. 'Very few men, properly speaking, live at present,' writes Swift, 'but are providing to live another time.' Such seems to me an irreligious life, the life of the world. The man of the world is careless of nothing save himself and his life... but to the religious man, life is too short and uncertain to be hoarded, too valuable to be spent at the pleasure of others, or the past or of the future, too precious to be thrown away on something he is not convinced is his highest good. In this sense, then, we are all, at moments, religious A religious revival is sometimes preached and spoken of as if it could be quite independent of other conditions and without relation to anything save, perhaps, a stricter moral behaviour. But, since the religious life, in the view I have tried to represent it, is synonymous with life itself at its fullest, there can be no revival of religion which is not a revival of a more daring and more sensitive way of live. And such a life may as easily be stifled under a mountain of moral prejudice, as dissipated by moral experiment perhaps more easily,'

is a philosopher who is remember for the sovereignty of technique but, it is rarely remembered, that in the end, he recognizes, through his skepticism, that it would be an error to suppose that the method can ever be the sole means of inquiry.

Descartes … is distinguished from Bacon in respect of the thoroughness of his education in the Scholastic philosophy and in the profound impression that geometrical demonstration had upon his mind, and the effect of these differences in education and inspiration is to make his formulation of the technique of inquiry more precise and in consequence more critical. His mind is oriented towards the project of an infallible and universal method or research, but since the method he propounds is modelled on that of geometry, its limitation when applied, not to possibilities but to things, is easily apparent. Descartes is more thorough than Bacon in doing his scepticism for himself and, in the end, he recognizes it to be an error to suppose that the method can ever be the sole means of inquiry. The sovereignty of technique turns out to be a dream and not a reality. Nevertheless, the lesson his successors believed themselves to have learned from Descartes was the sovereignty of technique and not his doubtfulness about the possibility of an infallible method.

is not a fixed determinate, but merely the placement of the pool balls on the table.

Tradition, he writes, using a metaphor from Michael Oakeshott, the British conservative philosopher about whom he wrote his Ph.D. thesis, is the placement of the pool balls on the table

Michael OakeshottThinkers

Michael Oakeshott