Oakeshott’s Skepticism, Politics, and Aesthetics

Description

This collection engages the work of Michael Oakeshott predominantly on the themes of his skepticism, politics, and aesthetics.  An international set of authors engages and expands the analysis of Oakeshott’s writings in often neglected areas and topics and in ways that brings Oakeshott into conversation with a surprisingly diverse set of thinkers. Acknowledgments Contents Notes on Contributors Introduction Under the Law of Ruin: Practice, Aesthetics, and the Civil Association 1 Practical Experience and Progress of the Sciences and Arts 2 Civil Association & Progress of the Sciences and Arts 3 Poets & Rulers in the Civil Association 4 Conclusion Michael Oakeshott Philosopher of Skepticism: Conservative or Liberal? 1 I 2 II 3 III Out of Rationalist Politics’ Crises: Popper and Oakeshott 1 Introduction 2 Two Fundamental Crises in Rationalist Politics 3 Popper’s Critical Rationalism 4 Oakeshott’s Pursuit of “Intimations in Tradition” 5 Piecemeal Social Engineering or Civil Association? 6 Conclusion A Conservative Landscape: From A Guide to the Classics to the “Claims of Politics” 1 An Essay with a View or the Outline of a Political Landscape 2 A Guide to the Classics or a Day at the Races 3 A Guide to the Classics or the Claims of Politics The Art of the Scholar: Oakeshott’s Conservative Account of Liberal Learning 1 Introduction 2 The Political Background of Oakeshott’s Stress on Practical Knowledge 3 Practical Knowledge in Science, Religion, Art and Cookery 4 The Art of the Scholar 5 Conservative Components of the Art of the Scholar 6 An Aesthetic Code The Understanding of Rationalism in C.S. Lewis and Michael Oakeshott: Tradition, Experience, and the Reading of Old Books 1 Introduction 2 Comparing Lewis’s and Oakeshott’s View of Rationalism 3 Looking at/Looking Along 4 Politics of the Felt Need 5 Education 6 Social Engineering 7 The Genesis of the Lewis/Oakeshott Similarities, and the Genealogy of Their Differences 8 Conclusion Oakeshott, Strauss and the Romans 1 Mcllwain on Greeks and the Romans 2 Strauss on McIlwain and the Romans 3 Oakeshott on the Romans 4 Cicero on the Romans 5 Conclusion: Conjectures on the Reasons for the Straussian Silence Concerning the Romans Authority: Fragments of the Good Regime 1 Good order and political episteme 2 The quadriga of good order 3 Authority instead of epistemology 4 Authority as conservative panacea ‘That Spirit of Quiet’: Oakeshott, Keats and Sontag Towards a Philosophy of Silence 1 The Rudiments of an Aesthetic Silence: Negative Capability 2 The Rudiments of an Aesthetic Silence: Listening for Conversation 3 The Rudiments of an Aesthetic Silence: The Via Negativa 4 Sontag on Styles of Silence 5 Conclusion Oakeshott’s Theory of Poetry: A Corrective from Seamus Heaney 1 Introduction 2 Oakeshott’s Aesthetic Continence 3 Understanding Poetry: What We Can Learn from Heaney 4 Contextualization 5 Negotiating a Divided Society 6 Poetry and Truth 7 Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant 8 Conclusion: Poetry, Truth and Didacticism The Problem of a Pure Theory of Poetry 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 What Can Contemporary Realists Learn from Montaigne? On the Significance of the Author of the Essais for Michael Oakeshott and Raymond Geuss 1 Introduction 2 Oakeshott’s Montaigne 3 Geuss’s Montaigne 4 Conclusion Index