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To be a conservative can be - broadly - defined as holding a set of values which you believe will best preserve the structure, stability, and order of society. But what if, to do this most effectively, you had to completely disregard any affiliation to any ideology whatsoever? This is the approach adopted by Michael Oakeshott, although it by no means meant that his voice was ignored in the political sphere.
The philosopher and political theorist Michael Joseph Oakeshott was born in 1901 in Chelsfield, Kent, England. His father, Joseph, was a member of the Fabian Society, a group which worked towards a peaceful transition intosocialismin the UK. In 1923, Oakeshott began his studies at Cambridge University before becoming a fellow of Caius College in 1925.
Throughout the 1930s, Oakeshott focused his attention on critiquing the direction European philosophy was taking. Works such asExperience and its Modes(1933) established him as aphilosophical idealist, who rejected the validity ofpolitical philosophy. Oakeshott did so on the grounds that political philosophers could not establish true philosophical enquiries, as they were limited to an attempt at explaining the physical world.
Philosophical idealismis a school of philosophy which states that ideas are the foundation of reality.
In 1939, however, Oakeshott publishedThe Social and Political Doctrines of Contemporary Europe.As we will discuss later, this work proved to be his first and only explicit analysis of contemporary political events.
From 1940 until 1945, Oakeshott served in the British army during the Second World War. Following this, he returned to Cambridge and briefly taught at Nuffield College, Oxford. He was appointed Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1951, where he remained until his retirement in 1969.
Continuing his active publishing life throughout the 1970s and 80s, Oakeshott established a body of work which secured his legacy as one of the great twentieth-century conservative philosophers. This was achieved through his various philosophical critiques ofliberalism,socialism, and generally any dogmatic ideologies. His magnum opus, entitledOn Human Conduct,was published in 1975.
On the 19th of December 1990, Michael Oakeshott passed away aged 89.
So, what aspects of Oakeshott's ideology can be incorporated into the conservative tradition in order to display him as one of its key thinkers? Let's take a look at some of the key tenets ofconservatismto gain an understanding of Oakeshott's ideology.
For conservatives, humans are necessarily limited in their capacity to acquire knowledge. Human nature is therefore defined by an inability to understand the complex reality of the world, and so conservatives advocate for a social system that accounts for this. This is the basis for the idea ofPaternalism.
Check out our explanation onPaternalismfor more detail!
Oakeshott is in favour of this understanding, and one of the major goals of his philosophical exploration is to prove its validity. In one essay included inRationalismin Politics(1962), Oakeshott famously made the claim that
In political activity... men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting place nor appointed destination.3
This claim that the sphere of politics is 'boundless and bottomless' has been incredibly influential on conservative ideology. As an analogy, it summarises the conservative notion that humans are incapable of understanding, let alone managing, political events.
For Oakeshott,conservatismwas not to be viewed as a comprehensive ideology but rather a disposition that individuals should utilise when navigating the world.
Essentially, for Oakeshott,conservatismwas a tool that could be used in the face of obstacles we have to confront. Through encouraging moderation and stability, the conservative ideology is equipped to guide individuals through the complex, 'boundless and bottomless' world in which we live, as
to be conservative... is to prefer the familiar to the unknown... the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded...convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.3
It is this commitment to the 'actual', 'limited', and 'convenient' which is conservatism's strongest characteristic, according to Oakeshott.
As we have already established, Oakeshott explicitly rejected the validity ofpolitical philosophy. However, this does not mean that his writing avoids political theory in general. So next we will look at Michael Oakeshott's political theory, especially his ideas about knowledge, anti-rationalism, and civil association.
One of the key ideas Oakeshott addresses in his political theory is that of knowledge, particularly how human beings acquire and use it to address obstacles they encounter. The clearest example of this comes in his 1933 work,Experience and its Modes.
For Oakeshott, experience was the integral quality which shaped things in our world. By this, he meant that experience is the fundamental foundation of reality. He constructs this view from the argument that experience is a state which is constantly responsive to the random changes in the physical world. To compartmentalise this explanation of experience, Oakeshott uses the argument that experience exists in differentmodes.
In philosophy, amode质量被定义为一个东西可以拥有或the form it can take. In other words, a mode is the way in which something exists.
Oakeshott uses the example of two contrasting modes: the historical mode, defined by its attempt to shape experience to meet certain criteria, and the scientific mode, which aims to explain recurring events through common regularities within them.
This understanding of modes is integral to Oakeshott's political theory, as it demonstrates his lack of faith in the possibility of building a coherent political discourse. Modes demonstrate the subjectivity of experience and the lack of a coherent narrative throughout history. This idea informs Oakeshott's theoretical approach to understanding politics.
Oakeshott argued that there was no opportunity for an objective approach to political issues. He was, therefore, staunchly opposed to the image of rationally constructed, value-based states that emerged out of the European Enlightenment era in favour of pragmatism.
Oakeshott distinguishes between two types of knowledge: technical and traditional. The former is grounded in the idea that the best outcomes are achieved through attempting to predict outcomes using abstract thinking, whereas the latter is grounded in learned experience through repetition and inherited knowledge.
For Oakeshott, traditional knowledge is the best option for effective decision-making. He argues that the technical approach breeds a situation, or political discourse, in which participants believe they have unlocked universal truths through rational deduction. They believe they have found practical solutions to abstract issues. In reality, Oakeshott argues, these so-called deductions can only come from one source: experience.
For Oakeshott, the rationalist principles inspired by the Enlightenment era led to the development of a state governed by 'enterprise association'. By this, Oakeshott meant that achieving abstract ideals such asequalityand freedom was, in reality, impossible. States founded on these ideas, for Oakeshott, were destined to enter a situation in which trueindividualismcould never flourish. Instead, he argued that they were replaced by abstract and unattainable images of perfection.
In place of the 'enterprise association' encouraged by rationalists, Oakeshott advocated for what he called 'civil associations'. In states based on this idea, individuals are protected by law but left to pursue their own free will outside of this framework. There is no commitment to abstract ideals but rather a recognition that each individual must experience the world for themselves, drawing their own conclusions and developing their own understanding.
Let's finish with two famous Michale Okaeshott books in which he expresses his ideas; The Voice of Liberal Learning and On Human Conduct.
In this collection of essays, Oakeshott reflects on education as a means for preserving society and traditions. Working in education for the vast majority of his adult life, it is no surprise that Oakeshott analysed this subject extensively. However, his conclusions in this area can also teach us a lot about his conservative ideology.
在一篇文章中,奥克肖特描述了教育:
a transaction between the generations in which the newcomers to the scene are initiated into the world which they are to inhabit.4
This idea of 'inheriting' ideas throughout generations is crucial to the conservative ideology. Here Oakeshott is alluding to the idea of the 'democracyof the dead', a conservative theory that states that the traditions of previous generations must be respected and maintained. It is through the 'transaction' of education, then, that this can be achieved. It is the maintenance of these traditions, for Oakeshott, which makes human beings what they are.
如果我们认为回到奥克肖特的基本论点that experience and practical knowledge are the guiding principles for a meaningful existence, then we can see how his view on education fits into this. Here he is appealing to the idea that education should not simply prepare us for a career but rather allow us to mould our understandings of ourselves and, in turn, the world. Ultimately,
none of us is born human; each is what he learns to become.4
In this work, written in the seven years following his retirement from lecturing, Oakeshott aims to develop a thorough justification for the rule of law in society. To do so, he grapples with the idea of civil association, which we have discussed above.
Oakeshott takes the striving towards abstract ideals as a society - those developed on 'enterprise association' - will willingly sacrifice the trueequalityof citizens to achieve their aims. InOn Human Conduct,therefore, Oakeshott rejects the existence of both universal morals and natural laws.
Life and knowledge, he argues, are both subjective experiences. There can be no unifying ideal, no matter how just it may seem, that can bring all individuals together to strive for a common goal. Instead, it is the practice of 'civility' - the following of law and order to preserve individual interests - which will sustain society. This is Oakeshott's essential argument throughout this work.
Michael Joseph Oakeshott was an influential philosopher and political theorist who is important in conservative ideology.
Oakeshott is conventionally characterised as a conservative, although he himself did not subscribe to any ideology.
Rationalism, for Oakeshott, was a form of political thinking which failed to understand the subjective, knowledge-based nature of reality.
Oakeshott's key contribution to political theory was the notion of civil association.
Oakeshott himself would not make this claim, as he did not subscribe to any contemporary political movements. Though some of his ideas are heavily associated with On-Nation Consevrtaism such as Paternalism.
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