My late chum, Ken Minogue, has just had a posthumous collection of his classic essays republished and it is edited by none other than Tim Fuller. Conservatismkenneth minogueLiberalismPolitical philosophyTimothy Fuller
Eric Cohen and Aylana Meisel in Commentary. To this day, many American Jews reflexively associate anti-Semitism with the “Right.” And without question, the “neo-Nazi” and white-supremacist strains of anti-Semitism exist in America, and occasionally their sick adherents act out against the Jews. But these perverse philosophies have no broad institutional base and no representatives in…
Roger is looking the sharpest I’ve seen him in years but he still retains the Just William hair. Christina Hoff Sommerscommon lawConservatismfree speechLiberalismLiteraturePhilosophyrationalismRoger Scrutonrule of lawSpontaneous order
A promising new title from U of Penn with several references to Aristotle, Hume, Oakeshott, Hayek, Aron, Berlin and more besides. The business of a government [is] not to inflame passion and give it new objects to feed upon, but to inject into the activities of already too passionate men an ingredient of moderation. — Michael Oakeshott…
The new issue of The Monist: “This special issue is motivated by the observation that conservatism plays a marginal role in contemporary philosophy even though it appears to be of considerable importance in moral, social, and political reality. One reason for this neglect is that defenders of conservatism have often refrained from articulating their arguments…
Thinking of this great subtle humane thinker — his birth and death dates are close together (December 11, 1901 — December 19, 1990) — whose work stands as one of the greatest challenges to salvation peddlers. For a freebie overview check out Terry Nardin’s SEP entry and two collections — Paul and my Penn State volume and…
The Lesser Evil podcast. Well-worth listening to the whole podcast. (Oakeshott is briefly mentioned by Andrew at 17 minutes in). Classic Sam — “Balkanized epistemology!” andrew sullivanConservatismethicsexpertiseLiberalismMichael OakeshottPoliticsReligionsam harris
Social psychologist Clay Routledge guest blogging in Scientific American. The tendency that Routledge points to is tone deaf to perfectly legitimate epistemic possibilities (meaningful viewpoint diversity) but we have long since pathologized ideology in a sad grab for power and influence (I have a chapter on this topic coming shortly). Surely the Overton window must be wide open…
Born on this day — see the themed issue of Cosmos + Taxis dedicated to Ken. Here is Ken at his elegant and wry best in Morals & the servile mind. I think Ken would have been chuffed by BREXIT not necessarily because of which side actually won, but because of which side was the most arrogant. Clue .…
The philosopher Alicja Gescinska visits Roger Scruton at his farm and chats about this, that, and the other or as Alicja puts it “on life, beauty and what we are about”. I didn’t know of Roger’s fall but glad to see him up and about and in good spirits. (Bob Grant in conversation with me always…
manwithoutqualities 