In Defence of Modernity : The Social Thought of Michael Oakeshott

This book is an inquiry into Oakeshott's philosophy as a whole, understood as social thought, and the central claim of the study is that Oakeshott's philosophy is one of the most sophisticated defences of modernity and liberalism found in contemporary British thought.

The central feature of modernity is seen here as the "fragmentation" of experience and society.

Critics of modernity see this situation of fragmentation as essentially unstable, based on false assumptions and lacking an authority of its own.

Oakeshott defends modernity against both pre-modernists and post-modernists.

For him, to be modern means to recognize radical plurality.

An appropriate response to this condition is reconciling ourselves with it by learning to appreciate and enjoy this plurality.

The book is structured into four sections. Section one introduces us into the setting of Oakeshott's thought by highlighting the idea of modernity.

Section two analyses Oakeshott's philosophy of experience.

It deals with the question of what it is to be modern in our reflective imagining of the world. Section three looks at Oakeshott's philosophy of society and explores what it is to be modern in the pragmatic perception of our social life.

It analyses the nature of the relation between Oakeshott's philosophy of experience and his philosophy of society.

Section four deals with Oakeshott's educational thought and its relation to his social philosophy as a whole.