The Limits of Political Theory by Kenneth B. McIntyre

Author:Kenneth B. McIntyre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Oakeshott, political philosophy, philosophical understanding, modality, political activity, conservatism, liberalism, postmodernism, idealism, skepticism, political theory, political practice, modern world
ISBN: 9781845403805
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

2 Luke O’Sullivan, in the only book-length treatment of Oakeshott’s philosophy of history, maintains that there is a “fundamental shift in Oakeshott’s conception of the relation of philosophy to other forms of thought, from a conception of it as ‘queen of the sciences’, exempt from the ‘arrests’ suffered by the other modes, and offering an undistorted vision of things as they really are, to a more modest view of it as one ‘voice’ amongst others.” According to O’Sullivan, this shift results in “history ceas[ing] to be seen as an unsatisfactory mode of enquiry from the philosophical perspective.” O’Sullivan’s justification for these claims is not substantially different from that of Stephen Gerencser in The Skeptic’s Oakeshott. I addressed Gerencser’s argument in the last section of chapter one, but reiterate that this argument, if valid, makes Oakeshott appear to be an extraordinarily muddled thinker. Like Gerencser, O’Sullivan suggests that Oakeshott abandons his early philosophical Idealism for an ill-defined skepticism in which philosophy exists as merely another abstract world of meanings. However, O’Sullivan, like Gerencser, never sufficiently defines Oakeshott’s ‘novel’ skeptical position on the character of philosophy. Further, like Gerencser, he confuses Oakeshott’s understanding of the logic of philosophy with the conclusions of philosophers, which results in O’Sullivan’s claim that Oakeshott rejects unconditionality as the criterion of philosophical experience when Oakeshott, in fact, merely recognizes the conditionality of specific conclusions. Finally, O’Sullivan exaggerates the significance of the absence of philosophical critique in Oakeshott’s later work on history. It is implicit in Oakeshott’s activity as a theorist of historical understanding that philosophy is capable of elucidating the character of other activities, including their defectiveness when considered in light of the criterion of absolute experience. See Luke O’Sullivan, Oakeshott on History (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003) x, 151-54, 219-22; and Gerencser, The Skeptic’s Oakeshott, 11-51.

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