Lexington Books
Pages: 150
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-0-7391-7161-5 • Hardback • July 2012 • $114.00 • (£88.00)
978-0-7391-7162-2 • eBook • July 2012 • $108.00 • (£83.00)
Wendell John Coats Jr. is Professor of Government at Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut.
Chor-yung Cheung is the Dean of Students of City University of Hong Kong, and specializes in political theory and Hong Kong politics.
Chapter 1: Michael Oakeshott and the Poetic Character of Human Activity
Chapter 2: Practical Implications of Oakeshott’s Poetic Conception of Human Activity
Chapter 3: Skepticism, Poetic Imagination, and the Art of Non-Instrumentality: Oakeshott and Zhuangzi
Chapter 4: Some Correspondences between Michael Oakeshott’s Critique of Rationalism and A.C. Graham’s account of Spontaneity vs. Reason
Chapter 5: Conversation and Learning: Oakeshott and Confucius
Chapter 6: Michael Oakeshott and Contemporary Political Philosophy: an interpretation
Chapter 7: “Theory and Practice” in Oakeshott, Strauss, and Vogelin
Chapter 8: Three Views of Leviathan – Oakeshott, Strauss, and Vogelin
Chapter 9: The Cave, The Tower of Babel, and Civil Conversation: Methaphors and the Philosophical and Political Thought of Oakeshott
In this book Coats and Cheung explain the centrality of Chinese thought in Michael Oakeshott’s philosophy. His notion that life’s value is found in doing things for their own sake rather than for some far-off telos reflects a central preoccupation of Taoism. Thus the essays collected here illuminate 'the poetic character of human activity,' which undoubtedly lies at the heart of Oakeshott’s philosophy. The book brings to light Oakeshott’s notion of the moral life as inherently creative, helping readers to see why he objects to the Rationalism and utilitarianism that pervade so much of modern life.
— Elizabeth Corey, Baylor University