Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T23:51:19.163Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Legend of Oakeshott's Conservatism: Sceptical Philosophy and Limited Politics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Jeremy Rayner
Jeremy Rayner
Affiliation:
Lakehead University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Michael Oakeshott's contribution to political philosophy has been overshadowed by the widespread belief that the proper context for his writings is modern conservatism. The legend of Oakeshott's conservatism is shown to rest on a misunderstanding of the way in which his view of politics as a specific and limited activity is derived from a more general, sceptical account of the relation between belief and conduct. His scepticism here is not a Burkean rejection of the relevance of general beliefs, but a Humean call for “speculative moderation” appropriate to the occasion. This is not to say that Oakeshott's writings are without political significance. In fact, their significance lies in their powerful critique of modern conservatism in Europe and America.

Résumé

La contribution de Michael Oakeshott à la philosophie politique a été éclipsée par le mythe selon lequel ses écrits se situent dans le courant du conservatisme moderne. Le soi-disant conservatisme d'Oakeshott est attribuable à une erreur d'interprétation. En effet, Oakeshott conçoit la politique comme une activité spécifique et somme toute limitée, mais dérive cette conception des rapports plus généraux qu'il établit entre les convictions et les comportements. Le scepticisme dont il fait preuve n'est pas une réjection burkienne de la pertinence des convictions diffuses, mais un plaidoyer, inspiré de Hume, en faveur d'une spéculation modérée et plus pragmatique. Ainsi, les écrits d'Oakeshott ont d'autant plus de pertinence qu'ils critiquent vigoureusement le conservatisme moderne en Occident.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 313 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 In North America the critical identifications of Oakeshott as a conservative were those of Viereck, Peter, Conservatism (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1956), 187Google Scholar; Kirk, Russell, who described him as “a brilliant disciple of Burke,” in The Consen'ative Mind (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1952), 416Google Scholar; and more recently Buckley, William, American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1970), 93–97.Google Scholar

2 Minogue, Kenneth, “Michael Oakeshott: The Boundless Sea of Politics.” in Crespigny, Anthony de and Minogue, Kenneth (eds.), Contemporary Political Philosophers (New York: Dodd Mead, 1975), 135.Google Scholar

3 Oakeshott, Michael, On Human Conduct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 9.Google Scholar

4 Crick, Bernard, “The World of Michael Oakeshott,” Encounter 20 (1963), 68.Google Scholar

5 Pitkin, Hanna, “The Roots of Conservatism: Michael Oakeshott and the Denial of Politics,” Dissent 20 (1973), 523.Google Scholar

6 Scruton, Roger, The Meaning of Conservatism (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980), 44–45Google Scholar; compare Beer, Samuel's account of modern British conservatism to see how this position has survived “the new populism,” in Britain Against Itself (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), 169–80.Google Scholar

7 Buckley, , American Conservative Thought, 93.Google Scholar

8 Watson, George, “Who are the Conservatives?” Encounter 61 (1983), 28.Google Scholar

9 Oakeshott, Michael, Experience and its Modes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), 247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ibid., 259; compare Greenleaf, W. H., “Idealism, Modern Philosophy and Politics,” in King, Preston and Parekh, B. C. (eds.), Politics and Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 116–18.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 303.

12 Ibid., 302.

13 Oakeshott, Michael, introduction to The Social and Political Doctrines of Contemporary Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), xv.Google Scholar

14 Ryle, Gilbert, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson, 1949), 25Google Scholar; Hampshire, Stuart, Thought and Action (London: Chatto and Windus, 1959), 119.Google Scholar

15 Oakeshott, Michael, “Rational Conduct.” in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (London: Methuen, 1962). 89.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 90.

17 Oakeshott, Michael, “Political Education,” in Rationalism in Politics, 133.Google Scholar

18 Criticism of this kind is summarized in Archer, J. R., “Oakeshott on Politics,” Journal of Politics 41 (1979), 157–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 54–65.Google Scholar

20 Oakeshott, Michael, “On Misunderstanding Human Conduct,” Political Theory 4 (1976), 364.Google Scholar

21 Oakeshott, , On Human Conduct. 55.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 57.

23 Ibid., 90.

24 Crick, , “The World of Michael Oakeshott,” 72Google Scholar; compare the more telling argument that Oakeshott's earlier work fails to distinguish between ordinary reflection on conduct, and reflection on ends premeditated independently of the activity undertaken, in Dowling, R. C., “Oakeshott's Theory of Reason, Tradition and Conservatism,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 5 (1959), 53–54.Google Scholar

25 Oakeshott, , Experience and its Modes, 296.Google Scholar

26 Oakeshott, Michael, “The Claims of Politics,” Scrutiny 8 (1939), 146–51.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 148. Compare the following: “For politics, we know, is a second-rate activity, neither an art nor a science, at once corrupting to the soul and fatiguing to the mind, the activity either of those who cannot live without the illusion of affairs, or those so fearful of being ruled by others that they will pay with their lives to prevent it” (Oakeshott, Michael, introduction to Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946], lxivGoogle Scholar).

28 Oakeshott, Michael, “On Being Conservative,” in Rationalism in Politics, 192–93.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., 192.

30 Oakeshott, Michael, “The Masses in Representative Democracy,” in Hunold, Albert (ed.), Freedom and Serfdom: An Anthology of Western Thought (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing, 1961), 151–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; compare On Human Conduct, 275–79.

31 Oakeshott, , On Human Conduct, 308.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., 317.

33 Cowling, Maurice, Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Oakeshott, , On Human Conduct, vii.Google Scholar

35 In addition to the works by Crick, and Pitkin, already mentioned, Crick returned to the attack in his In Defence of Politics ([2nd ed.; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982], 111–23)Google Scholar; a similar line of criticism is found in Wood, Neil, “A Guide to the Classics: The Scepticism of Professor Oakeshott,” Journal of Politics 21 (1959), 647–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The appearance of On Human Conduct was greeted by a special issue of Political Theory (4 [1976]), notable for yet another reworking of the “Burkean conservative” legend; see Pitkin, Hanna. “Inhuman Conduct and Unpolitical Theory,” 301–20Google Scholar, and Spitz, David, “A Rationalist malgre lui,” 335–52.Google Scholar Oakeshott was moved to an unusual (and entertaining) reply to these criticisms in “On Misunderstanding Human Conduct,” especially 357.

36 Pitkin, , “The Roots of Conservatism,” 525.Google Scholar

37 Oakeshott, Michael, “Conservative Political Thought,” Spectator 193 (1954), 424.Google Scholar

38 Oakeshott, Michael. “Contemporary British Politics,” Cambridge Journal 1 (1947–1948), 488Google Scholar; compare his latest remarks on the jus of lex in “The Rule of Law.” On History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 142–44.Google Scholar

39 Oakeshott, , “Rationalism in Politics,” 21.Google Scholar

40 Oakeshott, Michael, “Talking Politics,” National Review, December 5, 1980, 1345–46Google Scholar; compare “The Vocabulary ofa Modern European State.” Political Studies 23(1975). 197–98.Google Scholar

41 Oakeshott, Michael, review of Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, in The Historical Journal 23 (1980), 449–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Oakeshott, Michael, preface to Manning, David (ed.). The Form of Ideology (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980), viii.Google Scholar

43 Oakeshott, , On Human Conduct, 27–31.Google Scholar

44 Miller, David and Siedentop, Larry (eds.). The Nature of Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 2Google Scholar and note. There is an overview of Oakeshott, 's changing ideas of political philosophy in Bhikhu Parekh, “The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott,” British Journal of Political Science 9 (1979), 486–91.Google Scholar

45 Oakeshott, , “Talking Politics,” 1424.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., 1427: compare Oakeshott, , “The Rule of Law,” 162–64.Google Scholar

47 Oakeshott, . “The Rule of Law,” 161.Google Scholar

48 Oakeshott, , “Rationalism in Politics,” 21.Google Scholar

49 The material for this reading of Oakeshott, 's understanding of politics is drawn from On Hurnan Conduct, 158–80Google Scholar; “The Rule of Law,” 154–55; and “The Vocabulary of a Modern European State,” 409–14.

50 Oakeshott, , “The Tower of Babel,” in On History, 183.Google Scholar