Skepticism in Conversation

Abstract

In 1938, the view of Michael Oakeshott to a reader familiar with his writings may have been something like this: Here is another last envoy of British idealist philosophy—that used to be Collingwood. Five years ago Oakeshott published his major philosophical work, Experience and Its Modes, which he himself considered “a restatement of [idealism’s] first principles.”¹ And now, in 1938, he has reaffirmed his idealist stance in a lengthy consideration of the study of law from an idealist perspective, “The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence,” where he again claims that “Philosophical thought and knowledge is simply thought and knowledge without reservation or presupposition.”² He has shown some eclectic interests in subjects ranging from religion to politics to history to horse racing; but it is not clear if he has interests in these on their own, or to reveal the view of them through the lens of the idealist major work.³ It seems likely that Oakeshott will continue the effort of working out the implications of philosophical idealism—probably in intellectual isolation—and will continue to broaden his purview, attending to other areas of interest from that perspective.We should expect a book on history next, expanding and defending the idealist conception from the chapter Collingwood liked so much in Experience and Its Modes.⁴