Pathologizing Ideology, Epistemic Modesty and Instrumental Rationality
I: Preamble Epistemic conservatism in its most generic form is the idea that a belief has some presumption of rationality merely because it is held (Quine). Cognitive…
Tradition v. Rationalism: Voegelin, Oakeshott, Hayek, and Others
In the first half of the twentieth century, the rationalist tide had reached its high mark[1]. For example, in architecture and city planning, rationalism would sweep away…
Review of Tradition v. Rationalism: Voegelin, Oakeshott, Hayek, and Others
Tradition V. Rationalism: Voegelin, Oakeshott, Hayek, and Others. Lee Trepanier and Eugene Callahan, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2018. We live in strange times. Anyone following educational…
Disposition Not Ideology: Michael Oakeshott’s Unheeded Conservatism
The British political philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was one of the more sophisticated conservative thinkers of the twentieth century.[1] However, while he was once a fairly well-known…
Dominium v. Auctoritas: Nihilism and the Political Community
Anamnesis is a remembering or recollection of the orienting truths of existence that ought never to be forgotten. Mircea Eliade, in his Myth and Reality, wrote that…
Hayek and Oakeshott on Rationalism
"Rationalism," in the sense meant in this essay, might be understood as the idea that abstract thought, deducing answers to questions from first principles, is always superior…
The Critique of Scientism: Ryle and Oakeshott on Tacit Knowledge
For the past two hundred years or so, philosophers, sociologists, and political theorists who have been skeptical about the claims of modern scientistic or rationalistic epistemology have…
Hobbes in the Context of Modern Political Thought As Interpreted by Oakeshott, Strauss and Voegelin
The thought of Thomas Hobbes is a living force in philosophic reflection on modern politics. Yet many insist that an era of political philosophy, roughly beginning with…
Oakeshott on Rome and America
Oakeshott on Rome and America. Eugene Callahan. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic, 2012. Oakeshott’s critique of Rationalism is the most famous part of his corpus and also…
Accepting the World’s Imperfections: Michael Oakeshott’s Conservatism
The Meaning of Michael Oakeshott's Conservatism. Corey Abel, ed. Exeter, U.K.: Imprint Academic, 2010. Michael Oakeshott has always been a bit outside the mainstream of the…
Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics
Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics. Elizabeth Campbell Corey. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006. What is so fascinating about the philosophical writings of…
Michael Oakeshott: The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Skepticism
[It is] in The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism (Brit. sp.) that we see the full extent of [Michael] Oakeshott's transposed Augustinianism and his…