The Cambridge Companion to Oakeshott


Book Description

A systematic and accessible presentation of the ideas of one of the leading British philosophers of the twentieth century.




The Cambridge Companion to Oakeshott


Book Description

Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was one of the leading British philosophers of the twentieth century. He has been influential particularly as a political philosopher, but his work reflects a range of philosophical interests that have more gradually come to be appreciated. In this volume a broad group of scholars offers a comprehensive overview of Oakeshott's philosophy, including his moral and political philosophy, his philosophy of history, science and aesthetics, and his views on the role of education. They analyse Oakeshott's ideas in different intellectual contexts and assess his overall contribution to twentieth-century thought. Accessible and rich with new scholarly material, this volume will be an excellent guide for students and scholars alike.




A Companion to Michael Oakeshott


Book Description

Michael Oakeshott has long been recognized as one of the most important political philosophers of the twentieth century, but until now no single volume has been able to examine all the facets of his wide-ranging philosophy with sufficient depth, expertise, and authority. The essays collected here cover all aspects of Oakeshott’s thought, from his theory of knowledge and philosophies of history, religion, art, and education to his reflections on morality, politics, and law. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Corey Abel, David Boucher, Elizabeth Corey, Robert Devigne, Timothy Fuller, Steven Gerencser, Robert Grant, Noel Malcolm, Kenneth McIntyre, Kenneth Minogue, Noël O’Sullivan, Geoffrey Thomas, and Martyn Thompson.




The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law


Book Description

The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law introduces students, scholars, and practitioners to the theory and history of the rule of law, one of the most frequently invoked-and least understood-ideas of legal and political thought and policy practice. It offers a comprehensive re-assessment by leading scholars of one of the world's most cherished traditions. This high-profile collection provides the first global and interdisciplinary account of the histories, moralities, pathologies and trajectories of the rule of law. Unique in conception, and critical in its approach, it evaluates, breaks down, and subverts conventional wisdom about the rule of law for the twenty-first century.




The Cambridge Companion to Quine


Book Description

W. V. Quine (1908–2000) was quite simply the most distinguished analytic philosopher of the later half of the twentieth century. His celebrated attack on the analytic/synthetic tradition heralded a major shift away from the views of language descended from logical positivism. His most important book, Word and Object, introduced the concept of indeterminacy of radical translation, a bleak view of the nature of the language with which we ascribe thoughts and beliefs to ourselves and others. Quine is also famous for the view that epistemology should be naturalized, that is conducted in a scientific spirit with the object of investigating the relationship between the inputs of experience and the outputs of belief. The eleven essays in this volume cover all the central topics of Quine's philosophy: the underdetermination of physical theory, analycity, naturalism, propositional attitudes, behaviorism, reference and ontology, positivism, holism and logic.




The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism


Book Description

If there is a movement or school that epitomizes analytic philosophy in the middle of the twentieth century, it is logical empiricism. Logical empiricists created a scientifically and technically informed philosophy of science, established mathematical logic as a topic in and tool for philosophy, and initiated the project of formal semantics. Accounts of analytic philosophy written in the middle of the twentieth century gave logical empiricism a central place in the project. The second wave of interpretative accounts was constructed to show how philosophy should progress, or had progressed, beyond logical empiricism. The essays survey the formative stages of logical empiricism in central Europe and its acculturation in North America, discussing its main topics, and achievements and failures, in different areas of philosophy of science, and assessing its influence on philosophy, past, present, and future.




A Guide to the Classics


Book Description

Originally written in 1936 by two young Cambridge Fellows, A Guide to the Classics is a light-hearted manual on how to pick the Derby winner. However, as the tongue-in-cheek title suggested, there is more to the book than meets the eye, especially as one of the young dons went on to become, according to his 1990 Telegraph obituary, 'the greatest political philosopher in the Anglo-Saxon tradition since Mill - or even Burke'. The book takes the abstraction out of the Derby by attacking the systems which had been developed by generations of 'form' experts. It exposes theoretical solutions as fraudulent – instead it applies hard-headed empirical and historical analysis. Oakeshott went on to apply this methodology to his famous critique of 'rationalism' in politics. This long-awaited edition of Griffith and Oakeshott's classic text includes a new preface and foreword by horse racing journalist and author Sean Magee, and political commentator Peter Oborne.




Hobbes on Civil Association


Book Description




Michael Oakeshott


Book Description

In this book Paul Franco provides an authoritative introduction to the life and thought of Michael Oakeshott, one of the most important philosophical voices of the twentieth century. After sketching a brief biography of Oakeshott, Franco then examines his most distinctive ideas, including his early idealist theory of knowledge, his influential critique of rationalism and central social planning, and his liberal theory of civil association. Though best known as a political philosopher, Oakeshott also made significant contributions to the philosophy of history, aesthetics, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of education. Franco highlights Oakeshott’s impressive achievements in each of these areas. His book is an essential introduction to the whole range of Oakeshott’s thought, and it sets the philosopher’s work in historical context while also demonstrating its relevance to contemporary debates in political philosophy.




The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau


Book Description

Universally regarded as the greatest French political theorist and philosopher of education of the Enlightenment, and probably the greatest French social theorist tout court, Rousseau was an important forerunner of the French Revolution, though his thought was too nuanced and subtle ever to serve as mere ideology. This 2001 volume systematically surveys the full range of Rousseau's activities in politics and education, psychology, anthropology, religion, music and theater.