Nassim Nicholas Taleb gives the Platonic rationalist “elites” a mega bitch slap (Original source here). Supplemented by the recent lunacy as per below, I suspect that though philosophers (rightly so) got their knickers in a twist a couple of years ago when deGrasse Tyson slammed the value of philosophy, they’d be well on board with this…
David Boucher’s article from a decade ago freely available here. The shit-storm that we are now in is a consequence of complicitous “ruling class chatter” (Left and Right) and “enlightened” technocracy, a politics of faith that has become way out of wack with the politics of scepticism. The European Union required of its aspirant members formal…
New article in the History of European Ideas Alexander Blake Ewinghistory of ideasideologiesMichael OakeshottPhilosophy of historyPoliticsReinhart Kosellecktime
Long overdue! Here’s the entry written by Terry Nardin. aestheticscivil associationConservatismEpistemologyexperience and its modeshistory of political thoughtLiberal educationLiberalismMichael Oakeshotton human conductPhilosophy of historyphilosophy of social sciencePolitical philosophyrationalism in politicsReligion
Aurelian Craiutu reviews Oakeshott’s Notebooks, 1922-86. I don’t share the view that: If Oakeshott were alive today, he would welcome the fact that “the politics of faith” against which he wrote memorable pages seem to have lost some of its appeal. I think that the centre has not held at all and is at its narrowest band…
Oakeshott’s words were prescient and remains salient as ever The world in which many children now grow up is crowded, not necessarily with occupants and not at all with memorable experiences, but with happenings; it is a ceaseless flow of seductive trivialities which invoke neither reflection nor choice but instant participation. A child quickly becomes…
A superbly literate occassional co-author and chum of mine here with a chapter from a book that he edited and I too had a piece in. Christianitycivilizationcorey abelcultureMichael Oakeshott
A Lesson from CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien [w]e moderns are increasingly fleeing from “conversation that is open-ended and spontaneous, conversation in which we play with ideas.” Also Oakeshott on conversation: In a conversation the participants are not engaged in an inquiry or a debate; there is no ‘truth’ to be discovered, no proposition to…
Just released: here’s The Guardian and Standpoint reviews, the latter mentioning Oakeshott. A.N. Wilson in The Spectator is far more critical. I have left Michael Oakeshott till last because his relationship with Iris was perhaps the most improbable of them all. A political philosopher of real stature, who had a short affair and a long friendship with…
New article by the very excellent Elizabeth Corey. Elizabeth CoreyMichael OakeshottPolitical philosophyrationalismrule of law
manwithoutqualities 