Abstract

The thesis presents an interpretation of Michael Oakeshott's political theory by paying close attention to his reading of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes and explores the way in which Hobbes is incorporated into Oakeshott's philosophical project. The distinctiveness of Oakeshott's reading is assessed by considering it in relation to other major nineteenth and twentieth interpretations of Hobbes. Oakeshott's interaction with Hobbes is shown to be crucial to the development of his own thought and provides a focal point for determining his departure from his intellectual forbears, in particular the British Idealists. The focus on Hobbes also provides a means by which the validity of Oakeshott's categorial/idiomatic depiction of experience as a series of modes or platforms of understanding can be explored. In particular the distinction between philosophy and practice is scrutinised and it is argued that Oakeshott's work as an intellectual historian, as exemplified in his writings on Hobbes, does not consistently match the modal distinctions he elsewhere draws. Oakeshott's incorporation of Hobbes's thought, especially his theories of agency and authority, is shown to follow from the similarly categorial construction of knowledge that he attributes to Hobbes. His use of the distinction between the ideal characters' civil and enterprise association as a means of defining authority in the modern state is assessed in light of his reading of Hobbes's theory of authority. The validity of the distinction is questioned and it is argued that similar ambiguities are also reflected in his various readings of Hobbbes's theory of authority which eventually becomes virtually interchangeable with his own account of civil association. The affinities of Oakeshott and Hobbes's philosophies of religion are also explored as is the former's Hobbesian belief that civilization is threatened by linking the authorative basis of association to substantive doctrinal or metaphysical claims and most especially by those who exaggerate the role of reason in the conduct of human affairs. The philosophy/practice distinction is also questioned in this context. The conclusion seeks to locate Oakeshott's reading of Hobbes in terms of a broader methodological debate in the history of ideas