Product Description

In this carefully reasoned work, discovered after Michael Oakeshott's death in 1990 and here published for the first time, the preeminent political philosopher describes the fundamental dichotomy that has divided discussion of the role of government in Europe since the Renaissance. Oakeshott exposes the weaknesses of each opposing position and proposes a middle ground, incorporating some scepticism and some faith. "By general consensus, Oakeshott is the most striking and original British political thinker of the century...Anyone interested in the nature of politics and government will find this book of interest, and many will want to direct their senior students to it as an accessible introduction to Oakeshott's thought."-William Christian, University of Guelph, Perspectives on Political Science "The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism is concerned to trace the deepest and most permanent features of the modern European political landscape over the last five hundred years, and this it does in an original, insightful, and frequently eloquent manner. We are fortunate that the book has finally seen the light of day." -Paul Franco, Bowdoin College, Political Theory "We are grateful to the editor Tim Fuller for making available this little gem that combines philosophical insight and historical investigation in the exposure of the two 'styles' of modern European politics, without the elaborate prose to which Oakeshott has accustomed his readers: the absence of the typical flamboyant style that characterizes Oakeshott's published works, enables us to grasp his line of thought in the making and renders his arguments crystal clear...A sublime mememto."-Giovanni Giorgini, Political Studies

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #910564 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

The mean in action
In his celebrated introducton to Hobbes's Leviathan Michael Oakeshott distinguishes between two types of authors: those who are ready to disclose every move by which they approach their conclusions and those, like Hobbes, in whose writing "nothing is a promise", "nothing is in progress" and everything is a fulfilment. Judged by the work that he chose to publish during his lifetime, Oakeshott certainly belongs to the second category.

(A curious reader might be rewarded in further exploration of this theme if he or she turns to the volume The Achievement of Michael Oakeshott where his friends, colleagues and former tutees recall a different Oakeshott, Oakeshott a conversationist, and almost invariably register the striking difference between the impressions they got from reading his published work and talking to him while his though was "in progress". Also of some interest is comparison between Oakeshott's writing and that of his great contemporary R. G. Collingwood who obviously belonged to the first type of authors - for that see Henry Jones's review of Collingwood's juvenile work now published as an appendix to Essays in Political Philosophy)

Now it appears that Oakeshott was writing much more than he chose to publish. And in this unpublished work one has a rare chance of observing philosopher's mind at work. The Politics of Faith and the Politcs of Scepticism is interesting exactly for this reason; and because of that should be read in conjunction not only with Experience and Its Modes, Rationalism in politics, and On Human Conduct, but also with other posthumously published work (Religion, Politics and the Moral Life and Morality and Politics in Modern Europe).

It is on this voyage that one can learn how the notion of "character" first employed in Experience gardually develops into a concept central for specifically Oakeshottian mode of inquiry - the mean in action between "history" and "science". One can also enjoy the evolution of Oakeshott's vocabulary and what may be seen as an achievement in its own right - a gradual developement of a view of politics: from a "necessary evil" to a mode of human relationship which is "as rare as it is excellent".

All this is unlikely to move someone convinced (and in a way rightly so) that previously unpublished work adds little to what may be taken as philosopher's definitive view on the subject expressed in On Human Conduct. But then one has to recall that this view, Oakeshott tells his readers, should be examined not in terms of its conclusions but in terms of its postulates. Probably the most important of the latter is: the business of philosopher is NOT to construct a phlosophy, but to think philosophiically.