On Human Conduct is composed of three connected essays. Each has its own concern: the first with theoretical understanding, and with human conduct in general; the second with an ideal mode of human relationship which the author has called civil association; and the third with that ambiguous, historic association commonly called a modern European state. Running through the work is Professor Oakshott's belief in philosophical reflection as an adventure: the adventure of one who seeks to understand in other terms what he already understands, and where the understanding is sought is a disclosure of the conditions of the understanding enjoyed and not a substitute for it. Its most appropriate expression is an essay, which, he writes, "does not dissemble the conditionality of the conclusions it throws up and although it may enlighten it does not instruct."

On Human Conduct

Politics & Social Sciences

OAKESHOTT, MICHAEL

Philosophy

Oxford University Press

On Human Conduct is composed of three connected essays. Each has its own concern: the first with theoretical understanding, and with human conduct in general; the second with an ideal mode of human relationship which the author has called civil association; and the third with that ambiguous, historic association commonly called a modern European state. Running through the work is Professor Oakshott's belief in philosophical reflection as an adventure: the adventure of one who seeks to understand in other terms what he already understands, and where the understanding is sought is a disclosure of the conditions of the understanding enjoyed and not a substitute for it. Its most appropriate expression is an essay, which, he writes, "does not dissemble the conditionality of the conclusions it throws up and although it may enlighten it does not instruct."

On Human Conduct (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Clarendon Press

Contains four unpublished pieces and six previously published essays by Oakeshott. All the essays probe the meaning of words commonly, but often inappropriately, used in the discussion of political life. The works also reveal his religious outlook and the moral convictions that governed his life.

Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life

Religion & Spirituality

Religious Studies

Yale University Press

When Michael Oakeshott died in 1990, he left much unpublished material, including fully elaborated essays and complete full-length manuscripts. This volume contains selected items from these works based on a series of eight lectures delivered in 1958.

Morality and Politics in Modern Europe: The Harvard Lectures

Michael Oakeshott, the foremost British political philosopher of the twentieth century, died in 1990, leaving a substantial collection of unpublished material. Yale University Press is continuing to make available the best of these illuminating works.In this polished and hitherto unknown work, Oakeshott argues that modern politics emerged out of a debate, persistent through centuries of European political experience up to the present, on the question, 'What should governments do?' According to Oakeshott, two different answers have dominated our thought since the fifteenth century. One, exemplified by such thinkers as Rousseau and Marx, expresses a belief in the capacity of human beings to control, design, and monitor all aspects of social and political life, a belief fostered by the intoxicating increase in power available to governments in modern times.On the other hand, sceptics such as Montaigne, Pascal, Halifax and Hume argued that governments cannot, in principle, produce perfection, and that we should prevent concentrations of power which may result in tyrannies which oppress the dignity of the human spirit. Oakeshott exposes the pitfalls of both positions and shows the value of a middle ground that incorporates scepticism with enough faith to avoid total quietism. Readers of Oakeshott will find here the thinking that lies behind his famous definition of politics as 'the pursuit of intimations'.

The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism (Selected Writings of Michael Oakeshott)

Politics & Government

Michael Oakeshott, the foremost British political philosopher of the twentieth century, died in 1990, leaving a substantial collection of unpublished material. Yale University Press is continuing to make available the best of these illuminating works. In this polished and hitherto unknown work, Oakeshott argues that modern politics was constituted out of a debate, persistent through centuries of European political experience down to our own day, over the question "What should governments do?" According to Oakeshott, two different answers have dominated our thought since the fifteenth century. One, exemplified by such thinkers as Rousseau and Marx, expresses a belief in the capacity of human beings to control, design, and monitor all aspects of social and political life, a belief fostered by the intoxicating increase in power available to governments in modern times. On the other hand, sceptics such as Montaigne, Pascal, and Hobbes argued that governments cannot, in principle, produce perfection and that we should prevent concentrations of power that may result in tyrannies that oppress the dignity of the human spirit. Oakeshott exposes the pitfalls of both positions and shows the value of a middle ground that incorporates scepticism with enough faith to avoid total quietism. Readers of Oakeshott will find here the thinking that lies behind his famous definition of politics as "the pursuit of intimations.".

Michael Oakeshott’s interest in religion and theology was especially prominent in his essays of the 1920s and 1930s. This book consists of four important unpublished pieces, together with six essays by Oakeshott that originally appeared in remote and inaccessible journals. Much of the collection was written early in his career and reveals not only Oakeshott’s initial intellectual preoccupations but the idiosyncratic nature of his religious outlook and the moral convictions that governed his own life. The opening essay, "Religion and the World," which dates from 1925, reflects his view of what it means to live "religiously" in the world and prefigures arguments later elaborated in Experience and Its Modes. All the essays probe the meaning of words commonly—but often inappropriately—used in the discussion of political life. Thus Oakeshott explores meanings of religion and worldliness, society and sociality, authority and the state, political activity, and the character of political ideas and political philosophy. His writing is persuasive and compelling, and the essays are distinguished by great clarity and a genuinely philosophic spirit. In a substantial introduction, Timothy Fuller provides the first full explanation of Oakeshott’s religious ideas, setting them within their philosophical and political contexts. He shows how, over a thirty-year period, Oakeshott elaborated the implications of Experience and Its Modes, worked out his political theory as summarized in Rationalism in Politics, and gradually assembled his own philosophical account of the ideal that European civilization had made concrete in history—civil association under the rule of law—and to which he gave definitive expression in On Human Contact. Timothy Fuller is Dean of the College, Colorado College, and editor of The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education.

Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life (Selected Writings of Michael Oakeshott)

History

World

G TRADE-PAPERBACK. SMALL TO MEDIUM AMT OF PENCIL MARKINGS INSIDE.

Rationalism in politics and other essays (University paperbacks)

METHUEN

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Library Reprint)

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Methuen young books

Hobbes on civil association

Univ. of California Press

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Books by OAKESHOTT, MICHAEL

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by OAKESHOTT, MICHAEL. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

On Human Conduct

On Human Conduct (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life

Morality and Politics in Modern Europe: The Harvard Lectures

The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism (Selected Writings of Michael Oakeshott)

The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism (Selected Writings of Michael Oakeshott)

Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life (Selected Writings of Michael Oakeshott)

Rationalism in politics and other essays (University paperbacks)

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Library Reprint)

Hobbes on civil association