Review of Michael Oakeshott, rationalism in politics and other essays, and Paul Franco, The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott

• Main Author: KUKATHAS, Chandran
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1992
• Subjects: Political Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3027; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4284/viewcontent/191823__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was a political philosopher associated for most of his academic career with Caius and Gonville College as Official Fellow and Lecturer in History and later with the London School of Econom- ics as Professor of Political Science. His name is sometimes mentioned with those of two other famous thinkers associated with the LSE-Karl Popper and F. A. Hayek-and like them he has had a notable influence on contem- porary political thought. Yet whereas Hayek and Popper wrote a great deal on a variety of topics and were often at the center of academic controversy, Oakeshott wrote little, was not much given to academic disputation (with the exception of a reply to critics in a 1975 symposium in the pages of this journal) and, for many, remains an enigma