Marsh’s challenge: Oakeshott’s Self-Contradiction
Constructivism and Relativism in Oakeshott is possibly the most critical paper about Oakeshott’s thought published in recent years. As usually seems to be the case with Leslie Marsh’s writing, the paper is the product of much thought and reflection; he trialled a version at the 2003 MOA Conference, and it was finally published 2 years later in Corey Abel and Timothy Fuller’s anthology The Intellectual Legacy of Michael Oakeshott. The potency of its challenge has not diminished in the intervening years.
Leslie’s challenge is directed at both Oakeshott’s philosophy and the Oakeshottian scholarly community. He says, inter alia:
The relativistic stance that informs [Oakeshott's] radical constructivism gives license to socio-political conclusions we know Oakeshott could not possibly accept
and also:
Commentators can no longer absolve themselves of critically engaging with Oakeshott…Commentators’ haughty complicity with Oakeshott’s well-known lack of engagement with the philosophical establishment does Oakeshott no favors
Have any Oakeshottians risen to either side of Leslie’s challenge yet? If they have, then I would like to know about it. Those people with working accounts are welcome to login and comment; if you haven’t got a working account on this site, let me know via moa [dot] admin [at symbol] gmail.com
Marsh on Oakeshott and Ryle
Gilbert Ryle was one contemporary philosopher for whom Oakeshott had a good deal of respect; in his review of Ryle’s book The Concept of Mind he called the book “a piece of philosophical writing in the highest class” as well as a “classic” – which, in Oakeshott’s usage, must put the book in the same class as Plato’s Republic, Hobbes’s Leviathan and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.
Commentators have long detected some similarity between Oakeshott’s thoughts on the distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge and Ryle’s distinction between “knowing how” and “knowing that”.
Now (or, strictly speaking, a couple of months ago) MOA founder and keen epistemologist Leslie Marsh has posted on his blog sections of his own evaluation of “Ryle and Oakeshott on the knowing-how/knowing-that distinction“.
The paper is the fruit of much reflection and re-writing; Leslie presented one version of it at the 2006 M.O.A conference. The complete text will be published the old fashioned way, but this online sample will at least give you a taste of what you can expect.
MOA Conference in progress
The 2009 MOA conference is underway, and the early reports I have received from in the field say it is all going well.
Thanks are in order to Imprint Academic for their support (as with previous conferences) as well as Baylor University for providing a most congenial venue — and of course, also to Elizabeth Corey, for her efforts in organizing the conference.
Updated MOA Conference Program
A revised program is now available for next month’s MOA Conference at Baylor University, Texas.
Collingwood Conference Italy 2010
The R.G. Collingwood Society will be holding a conference in Italy, 19-22 July 2010.
Theme: The Empire of Idealism.
The conference is a multi-university and multi-national affair: sponsored by the Australian Research Council, the venue is run by Monash, the organizers hail from Macquarie, and you can find more information at Cardiff’s Collingwood & British Idealism Centre.
The deadline for abstracts is currently set at 15 December 2009.
Introduction to Leviathan – compare 1946 vs 1975 editions for free
For several years we have known that the 1975 version of Oakeshott’s famous Introduction to Hobbes’s Leviathan has been available for free online, courtesy of Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty.
Leslie Marsh has now drawn our attention to the fact that the 1946 version can be found on Scribd. Since registration on Scribd is free, it is possible to download and compare both editions for free.
Oakeshott vs Bloom re Education
“Tory anarchist” Daniel McCarthy has posted some thoughts on the differences between Oakeshott and Allan Bloom’s views of education in The American Conservative magazine