Roy Tseng

This is the first book-length study to provide a structured interpretation of the significance of Michael Oakeshott's critique of the Enlightenment. By seeing the thinker as a 'sceptical idealist' posing a serious challenge to the intellectual positions informed by the Enlightenment, this book attempts to resolve some of the issues debated by Oakeshott scholars. The author argues that Oakeshott's famous critique of philosophisme and Rationalism in fact expresses a sense of the crisis of philosophical modernity. Moreover, notwithstanding some recent interpretations, Oakeshott has never altered his analysis of these two themes: philosophy as the persistent re-establishment of completeness by transcending abstractness, and the modes of experience as self-consistent worlds of discourse.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: A Unique Voice
• The Enlightenment Positions
• Philosophy and Modes of Experience
• A Sceptical Philosophy of Politics
• An Idealistic Defense of History
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

· ISBN 0-907845-22-3 · Published January 2003 by Imprint Academic · Cloth · 302 pages · $49.90 ·

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