The Poetic Character of Human Activity

The Poetic Character of Human Activity PDF Author: Wendell John Coats
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739171615
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book

Book Description
The Poetic Character of Human Activity is a collection of essays by two Oakeshott scholars, most of which explores the meaning of Oakeshott's pregnant phrase, "the poetic character of human activity" by comparing and contrasting this idea with similar and opposing ones, in particular those of the Taoist thinker, Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), and his Western interpreter, A.C. Graham. Oakeshott's deep appreciation of the poetic and non-instrumental character of human activity led him to develop an interest in the works of Zhuangzi and Confucius. Comparison of shared themes between Oakeshott and these two Chinese thinkers facilitates appreciation of his elegant analytic style and his resort to use of metaphors and story-telling when conveying some of his most profound insights. The collection also contains essays contrasting Oakeshott's idea of the "creative" in human experience with views of, among others, Plato, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. Oakeshott used the phrase "the poetic character of human activity" (arguably the animating center of his entire thought), to refer to the "creative" character of human experiential reality, that is, to the fact that the form (the how) and content (the what) of all human experience and activity arise simultaneously and fluidly, and can be separated only at the expense of theoretical coherence and practical skill. The various essays in this collection explore the meaning of this claim, and its ramifications for the proper role of critical intellect in especially philosophy, morality, learning, and governance. There is also some brief contrast of Oakeshott with John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and Quentin Skinner.

The Poetic Character of Human Activity

The Poetic Character of Human Activity PDF Author: Wendell John Coats
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739171615
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book

Book Description
The Poetic Character of Human Activity is a collection of essays by two Oakeshott scholars, most of which explores the meaning of Oakeshott's pregnant phrase, "the poetic character of human activity" by comparing and contrasting this idea with similar and opposing ones, in particular those of the Taoist thinker, Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), and his Western interpreter, A.C. Graham. Oakeshott's deep appreciation of the poetic and non-instrumental character of human activity led him to develop an interest in the works of Zhuangzi and Confucius. Comparison of shared themes between Oakeshott and these two Chinese thinkers facilitates appreciation of his elegant analytic style and his resort to use of metaphors and story-telling when conveying some of his most profound insights. The collection also contains essays contrasting Oakeshott's idea of the "creative" in human experience with views of, among others, Plato, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. Oakeshott used the phrase "the poetic character of human activity" (arguably the animating center of his entire thought), to refer to the "creative" character of human experiential reality, that is, to the fact that the form (the how) and content (the what) of all human experience and activity arise simultaneously and fluidly, and can be separated only at the expense of theoretical coherence and practical skill. The various essays in this collection explore the meaning of this claim, and its ramifications for the proper role of critical intellect in especially philosophy, morality, learning, and governance. There is also some brief contrast of Oakeshott with John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and Quentin Skinner.

The Poetic Character of Human Activity

The Poetic Character of Human Activity PDF Author: Wendell John Coats, Jr.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739171623
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Get Book

Book Description
The Poetic Character of Human Activity: Collected Essays on the Thought of Michael Oakshott is a collection of nine essays by two Oakeshott scholars, most of which explore the meaning of Oakeshott’s pregnant phrase, “the poetic character of human activity” by comparing and contrasting this central idea with similar and opposing ones, in particular those of the Chinese thinkers, Zhuangzi and Confucius, but also of Western thinkers such as Plato, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. Common themes addressed include the poetic or non-instrumental aspects of philosophizing, teaching and learning, morality and governance.

Political Theory and Practice

Political Theory and Practice PDF Author: Wendell John Coats
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 9781575910758
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book

Book Description
The essays in this monograph address the relation of political theorizing to political practice and action collected in over two decades of teaching the canonical history of Western political theory. The issues were selected not on some deductive or speculative basis, but for the light they may shed on the political theory.

The Intellectual Legacy of Michael Oakeshott

The Intellectual Legacy of Michael Oakeshott PDF Author: Corey Abel
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845406001
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Get Book

Book Description
This volume brings together a diverse range of perspectives reflecting the international appeal and multi-disciplinary interest that Oakeshott now attracts. The essays offer a variety of approaches to Oakeshott's thought - testament to the abiding depth, originality, suggestiveness and complexity of his writings. The essays include contributions from well-known Oakeshott scholars along with ample representation from a new generation. As a collection these essays challenge Oakeshott's reputation as merely a 'critic of social planning'. Contributors include Josiah Lee Auspitz, Debra Candreva, Wendell John Coats Jr., Douglas DenUyl, George Feaver, Paul Franco, Richard Friedman, Timothy Fuller, Robert Grant, Eric S. Kos, Leslie Marsh, Kenneth Minogue, Terry Nardin, Keith Sutherland, Martyn Thompson and Gerhard Wolmarans.

Oakeshott and His Contemporaries

Oakeshott and His Contemporaries PDF Author: Wendell John Coats
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 9781575910383
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Get Book

Book Description
"Oakeshott and His Contemporaries is an exploration of the ideas of one of the most important twentieth-century English political philosophers vis-a-vis related ideas in the thought of seven prominent European thinkers, spanning a millennium and a half. The intent of the exploration is not an attempt to uncover Oakeshott's intellectual influences (a dubious project in the case of any original thinker), but rather to show the importance and coherence of Oakeshott's various themes by showing how they modify, amplify, and contrast with similar and related themes in the thought of seven better known thinkers - Montaigne, St. Augustine, Hegel, Hobbes, Benjamin Constant, Rousseau, and Hume."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Legendary Past

The Legendary Past PDF Author: Natalie Riendeau
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845407830
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book

Book Description
The book explores Oakeshott's thought on the key role human imagination plays in relation to the political. It addresses four main themes: imagination, foundational narratives, the question of political societies' identities as well as that of human living-together, to use Hannah Arendt's expression. The book's main objective is to show that Oakeshott may be rightfully understood to be a philosopher of the imagination as well as a foundationalist thinker in the Arendtian narrative constructivist tradition.

The Place of Michael Oakeshott in Contemporary Western and Non-Western Thought

The Place of Michael Oakeshott in Contemporary Western and Non-Western Thought PDF Author: Noel O'Sullivan
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845409507
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
The continuing growth of worldwide interest in Michael Oakeshott's philosophy and political theory has recently (2016) been marked by the publication of two 'Companion to Oakeshott’ volumes. This event provides a welcome opportunity to explore the reasons for his influence both within the West and beyond it. Essays by contributors from Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, India, and the USA provide a comprehensive critical assessment of the principal aspects of Oakeshott’s thought that account for his contemporary relevance. The unusually multi-national background of the authors aims to give the volume a wide appeal, extending not only to those already familiar with Oakeshott’s writings but also to those as yet unfamiliar with them, regardless of their cultural background. All the contributors have attempted to write in a way that makes Oakeshott as accessible as possible.

Michael Oakeshott as a Philosopher of the Creative

Michael Oakeshott as a Philosopher of the Creative PDF Author: Wendell John Coats Jr.
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1788360117
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book

Book Description
This book is a collection of eight (mostly) recent essays on the work of the 20th-century English philosophic essayist, Michael Oakeshott. Six of them advance the view in different ways that Oakeshott's multifarious lifework may be understood as variations on a singular insight — that the structure of experiential reality is 'creative' or 'poetic’, with the form and content (the how and what) of thought and activity occurring simultaneously and conditioning one another reciprocally; and that this experiential structure has specifiable cultural, political and legal ramifications. In advancing and illustrating this viewpoint, comparisons and contrasts are drawn with medieval nominalism, philosophic idealism, Cartesianism, modernity, post-modernism, Chinese Daoism and with the views of thinkers such as Sir Henry Maine, Charles McIlwain, M.B. Foster, Leo Strauss, A.C. Graham, Friedrich Hayek, Efraim Podoksik, John Liddington, and others. Included also is an essay on the educational views of Oakeshott and A.N. Whitehead, and another on Oakeshott, Max Weber and Carl Schmitt and the relationship between politics and armed force. A very brief concluding postscript asserts the continued relevance (as a corrective) of Oakeshott’s views on the creative structure of human experience in an age of ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI).

Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics

Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics PDF Author: Elizabeth Campbell Corey
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826265170
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book

Book Description
"Argues that Oakeshott's views on aesthetics, religion, and morality, which she places in the Augustinian tradition, are intimately linked to a creative moral personality that underlies his political theorizing. Also compares Oakeshott's Rationalism to Voegelin's concept of Gnosticism and considers both thinkers' treatment of Hobbes to delineate their philosophical differences"--Provided by publisher.

The Democratic Theory of Michael Oakeshott

The Democratic Theory of Michael Oakeshott PDF Author: Michael Minch
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845403894
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book

Book Description
his book offers a description, explanation, and evaluation of Michael Oakeshott’s democratic theory. He was not a democratic theorist as such, but as a twentieth-century English political theorist for whom liberal theory held deep importance, his thought often engaged democratic theory implicitly, and many times did so explicitly. The author’s project penetrates two renewals. The first is the revitalization of interest in Oakeshott, and the second is the renewal of democratic theory which began in the 1980s. In respect to this latter renewal, the book engages the deliberative turn in democratic theory. These revivals create the context for this new look at Oakeshott. To state the matter as a problem, one might say that in light of new and fecund democratic theory, it is a problem for political theory if one of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century is left out of the discourse insofar as he has something relevant to say about deliberative democracy. It is of no small importance that almost all the work in democratic theory being done these days is of the deliberative/discursive kind, or responses to it. That is, deliberative theory is driving the agenda of democratic theory. The author argues that Oakeshott does indeed have something relevant to say which is applicable to this democratic theory.