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Oakeshott on Education

Here is Anthony’s entry on Oakeshott from The Routledge encyclopaedia of educational thinkers — note, MO’s date of death is incorrectly stated. anthony o’hearJoy A. Palmer CooperLiberal educationMichael OakeshottPhilosophy of Education

No Patrimony

Here’s the very excellent Frank Furedi who has this new piece in First Things and who, is of course, a regular contributor to the ecumenical and well-named Spiked. Now what is especially interesting about Frank is that he reminds me a great deal of Paul Hirst and another decent chap, Jerry Cohen. As the Guardian obituary says of Paul, he…

In Praise of Moderation

The very excellent Elizabeth Corey’s First Things review of Aurelian Craiutu’s the Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes. Aurelian CraiutuElizabeth CoreyLiberalismMichael OakeshottmoderationPolitical philosophy

Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Born on this day, that most subtle, civilized, cultivated, elegant, insightful, humane and liberal quality of mind. For all things Oakeshottian check out the Michael Oakeshott Association, the unaffiliated Michael Oakeshott Society, loads of stuff on this site including a very rare BBC recording of Oakeshott on the philosophy of history, and last, but no means least, A Companion to…

The Fragile Generation

Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt in Reason on how many of our generation fucked up their kids: the upshot being that these kids are vulnerable to regressive group- think/hug at university. Because of this fostering of over-dependence and therefore of associated incompetence and laziness (mum will always intercede) these parents have only succeeded in frittering away their…

The Fordist Academic

Scathing assessment of prevailing academia by Binoy Kampmark, well and truly caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, higher education institutions are encouraged to be functional to market requirements (ROI, translational research); while on the other hand, so much of the university is given over to ideological indoctrination, activism masquerading as disinterested inquiry—i.e.…

Sir Alistair MacFarlane on Michael Oakeshott

Sir Alistair MacFarlane on the significance of Oakeshott in Philosophy Now. I wouldn’t have guessed that the featured portrait painting is of Oakeshott: it is indeed Maurice Cranston. Alistair MacFarlaneexperience and its modesJohn Stuart MillLiberalismLudwig WittgensteinMichael Oakeshotton human conductPhilosophy