Oakeshott’s Skepticism, Politics, and Aesthetics

Eric S. Kos is Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Social Sciences at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan and former President of the Michael Oakeshott Association.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Under the Law of Ruin: Practice, Aesthetics, and the Civil Association.- 3. Michael Oakeshott Philosopher of Skepticism: Conservative or Liberal?.- 4. Out of Rationalist Politics’ Crises: Popper and Oakeshott.- 5. A Conservative Landscape: From A Guide to the Classics to the “Claims of Politics”.- 6. The Art of the Scholar: Oakeshott’s Conservative Account of Liberal Learning.- 7. The Understanding of Rationalism in C.S. Lewis and Michael Oakeshott: Tradition, Experience, and the Reading of Old Books.- 8. Oakeshott, Strauss and the Romans.- 9.  Authority: Fragments of the Good Regime.- 10. ‘That spirit of quiet’: Oakeshott, Keats and Sontag Towards a Philosophy of Silence.- 11. Oakeshott’s Theory of Poetry: A Corrective from Seamus Heaney.- 12. The Problem of a Pure Theory of Poetry.- 13. What can Contemporary Realists Learn from Montaigne? On the Significance of the Author of the Essais for Michael Oakeshott and Raymond Geuss.

“The book will be a valuable resource for those who are conducting research on the thought of Michael Oakeshott, and it has brought a variety of new voices into the conversation about his wide-ranging and humane work.” (Elizabeth Corey, History of European Ideas, March 22, 2024)