Here is the “dean” of Oakeshott exposition, Tim Fuller, and a taster from his essay for the Companion. My intention is to reflect on two themes that run through the whole of Oakeshott’s thought: first, the radical temporality of the human condition and, second, the character of modernity’s response to radical temporality. The first is,…
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Here is a trailer of Corey Abel’s essay “Whatever It Turns Out To Be: Oakeshott on Aesthetic Experience,” the eighth essay in the run-up to the Companion’s official publication on October 19: Orbaneja, a fictional painter from a real town, is criticized by Don Quixote for painting so badly that he produces only “whatever emerges,” so…
Having trailed the chapters comprising section II of the Companion I now present my co-editor’s piece. Michael Oakeshott’s writings on education form one of the most attractive aspects of his philosophy and have duly garnered considerable attention. They evoke an ideal of liberal learning for its own sake, freed from the narrowing necessities of practical…
Martyn Thompson’s contribution to the Companion: My concern is twofold. First, I shall outline what I take Oakeshott to have meant by the phrase “the history of political thought” and then I shall consider some criticisms from Oakeshott’s perspective of the theory and practice of Quentin Skinner, the leading figure in the so-called Cambridge School…
The new companion has landed in my mailbox. A fine production and my congrat to you and Paul for your efforts in bringing it to press. In an earlier message, you said there would be some surprises here, or words to that effect. Wow! What a stunner from Robert Grant! I think most of us…
Here is Ken Minogue’s intro paragraph to his essay in the Companion to Michael Oakeshott (I recently had dinner with Ken and am pleased to report that he is doing quite well). Michael Oakeshott is perhaps best known as the foe of a political vice called “rationalism,” and it is a vice because, in believing…
Tim Fuller, one of our Companion’s eminent contributors, here with an article on the Liberty Fund website. A defining theme of Michael Oakeshott’s thought is that, through the past five centuries, European civilization can count among its greatest achievements the invention of “civil association” and the clarification of the “rule of law.” These are arrangements…
Rob Devigne (or maybe it’s really Jack Nicholson) looks at Oakeshott’s ostensibly conservative stance – as several in this volume point out, this is very tricky territory indeed. Oakeshott is not a conservative that even most self-avowed conservatives would typically recognise. The identification of Michael Oakeshott with conservatism is fraught with debate. To be sure, some…
STEVEN GERENCSER trailer from A Companion to Michael Oakeshott To write about law in relationship to Michael Oakeshott’s ideas generally, or his thoughts on politics in particular, presents a complicated task, not because law is an obscure concept in Oakeshott, and not because it is a topic about which he has written little. In fact,…
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