Abstract

This thesis examines the entire writings of the British political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, with particular regard to what Oakeshott calls the mode of practice in his philosophical system. Chapter 1 investigates the relationship between philosophy and practice in Oakeshott's first major work, Experience and its Modes and concludes that the separation between philosophy and practice is problematic. Chapter 2 analyses Oakeshott's developing theory of practical life in the essays of the 1940s and 1950s, with special attention to its relationship with the modes of poetry and history. Chapter 3 investigates the notion of a practice within the mode of practice, and examines Oakeshott's attempt to conceive of a non-purposive human association, which allows for both radical contingency and complete human autonomy within the confines of a heteronomously generated subject. Chapter 4 sees how this conception of a practice is subsequently applied to politics in Oakeshott's political writings, and focuses on the notion of a civil association as an example of such a political practice. The final chapter examines Oakeshott's view of religious life as the consummation of practice in its most poetic incarnation. The thesis concludes that Oakeshott's original attempt to see philosophy as providing that which was ultimately satisfactory in experience shifts in his later writing to an emphasis on the ultimate satisfaction of practical life. This satisfaction is best achieved by a fusion of the modes of poetry and practice, which is subsequently brought to its most intense fruition in Oakeshott's account of religious life. The notion of a practice is deployed in political life in order to render less problematic the dilemma of conflicting human ends, and in order to maximize the potential for uncoerced and unhindered poetic-practical life for individuals. Although the role of philosophy is subdued throughout the large body of Oakeshott's later writings and practice assumes a dominant role, there is however no fundamental retraction of philosophy's primacy. The thesis concludes that Oakeshott's work is best seen as a long meditation on the tensions between philosophic and practical life, without any clear resolution