Sartre's radicalism and Oakeshott's conservatism: the duplicity of freedom.

If man has no nature - if our intellect and understanding are products of our own activities - do we possess a key to self-modification?

Are we free to re-make mankind? Sartre champions the romantic idea that we can - by sheer determination - begin afresh.

Oakeshott is struck by the vandalism of such a project - he seeks to defend political culture from degradation by meddling academics.

The Radical and Conservative understanding of social order and the human self are compared in this in-depth analysis of two contrasting philosophies.