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Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics and Politics Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2004 Being otherworldly in the world: Michael Oakeshott on elir gion, aesthetics and politics Elizabeth Campbell Corey Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Corey, Elizabeth Campbell, "Being otherworldly in the world: Michael Oakeshott on er ligion, aesthetics and politics" (2004). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 569. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/569 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. BEING OTHERWORLDLY IN THE WORLD: MICHAEL OAKESHOTT ON RELIGION, AESTHETICS AND POLITICS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Political Science by Elizabeth Campbell Corey B.A., Oberlin College, 1994 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1999 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2001 December, 2004 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is my great pleasure to be able to thank the people who have made this dissertation possible. My greatest debt is owed to Professor Ellis Sandoz, who has provided consistent support—both moral and financial—since I entered the Ph.D. program in 1998. His procurement of Earhart scholarship funds made it possible for me to focus solely on my studies both at LSU and during a year abroad at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. I am therefore also grateful to the Earhart Foundation for its consistent support over these last six years. I am also indebted to the other members of the LSU Political Science Department who served as members of my Ph.D. committee. James Garand spent countless hours with me as we engaged in substantive research together, and his ability to introduce students to the professional academic world—that is, to the world of conferences and publishing—is remarkable. James Stoner was my teacher in most of my substantive political philosophy courses, and his insights and penetrating questions remain a model for me of how the intellectual life ought to be conducted. And Cecil Eubanks was an invaluable resource in teaching me “how to teach.” As my teaching mentor he was both a model for my own conduct in the classroom and an insightful but gentle critic of my first attempts at teaching undergraduates. Special thanks also go to two teachers and friends, whom I was fortunate to get to know during my years as a graduate student. Timothy Fuller’s expertise in Oakeshott studies and his willingness to advise my work from afar has been vital in the writing of this dissertation. And Robert McMahon deserves a much more sincere thanks than I can give here, both for introducing me to Oakeshott and for being a model of a humane ii scholar. His advice on the subjects of academic reading and writing have been formative, and he will no doubt continue to be a mentor for me in the years to come. I also owe, of course, a great debt to my parents, who have helped me in countless ways over the years, and who have stood by both me and my husband as we concurrently pursued graduate degrees. The consistent encouragement they have given has been invaluable. Finally, my greatest debt of all is owed to my husband, David Corey, without whom this dissertation would not have been written. Our discussions on the subject of Michael Oakeshott and on political philosophy more broadly conceived have been formative in my intellectual development. And his gentle encouragement that I finish the dissertation in a timely manner was precisely what I needed to see the project to completion. It has been just the impetus I needed to arrive at this happy occasion of expressing my gratitude to all those who have been important to me over these past six years. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .........................................................................................................................ii ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ..........................................................................................................................................vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 OAKESHOTT AND AUGUSTINE ON THE HUMAN CONDITION ..........................................27 CHAPTER 3 FUTURE, PAST AND PRESENT ........................................................................................63 CHAPTER 4 OAKESHOTT’S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT ............................................................................98 CHAPTER 5 OAKESHOTT’S AESTHETICS...........................................................................................130 CHAPTER 6 THE TOWER OF BABEL AND THE MORAL LIFE ..............................................................167 CHAPTER 7 RATIONALISM AND THE POLITICS OF FAITH ..................................................................207 CHAPTER 8 SKEPTICAL POLITICS AND CIVIL ASSOCIATION .............................................................232 CHAPTER 9 RATIONALISM AND GNOSTICISM: OAKESHOTT AND VOEGELIN ....................................250 CHAPTER 10 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................287 WORKS CITED.....................................................................................................................................310 VITA ...................................................................................................................................................317 iv ABBREVIATIONS EM Experience and its Modes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933. HCA Hobbes on Civil Association. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975. MPME Morality and Politics in Modern Europe. Edited by S. R. Letwin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. OH On History and Other Essays. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983. OHC On Human Conduct. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. PFPS The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism. Edited by Timothy Fuller. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. RP Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Edited by Timothy Fuller. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991. RPML Religion, Politics and the Moral Life. Edited by Timothy Fuller. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. SJ “Shylock the Jew.” Caian 30 (1921): 61-67. SPDCE The Social and Political Doctrines of Contemporary Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1953. VLL The Voice of Liberal Learning. Edited by Timothy Fuller. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. WIH What is History? Edited by Luke O’Sullivan. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2004. WP “Work and Play.” First Things 54 (1995): 29-33. v ABSTRACT This dissertation is a study of the thought of Michael Oakeshott with particular emphasis on his writings about the character of religion and aesthetics. The dissertation as a whole makes the case that a certain moral vision—one informed by religious and aesthetic considerations—lies at the center of Oakeshott’s thought and informs his political philosophy. The dissertation begins as an examination of Oakeshott’s debts to St. Augustine and to British Idealist thinkers such as F. H. Bradley, and moves to a study of Oakeshott’s own views on religion and aesthetics. It turns next to a consideration of Oakeshott’s two essays entitled “The Tower of Babel,” making the case that Oakeshott’s views on aesthetics and morality are intimately linked in a certain kind of moral personality. It is this moral personality—one that is creative and unique to each individual—that Oakeshott finds most praiseworthy. Such a moral character underlies his political theorizing, in that such persons are those who can fully embrace Oakeshott’s “politics of skepticism” and his idea of civil association. The dissertation concludes by comparing Oakeshott’s conception of “Rationalism” to Eric Voegelin’s idea of “Gnosticism.” vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION I tried research one summer. A friend of mine, a boy from Pittsburgh named Harry Stern, and I read up the literature and presented the problem. But then a peculiar thing happened. I became extraordinarily affected by the summer afternoons in the laboratory. The August sunlight came streaming in the great dusty fanlights and lay in yellow bars across the room. The old building ticked and creaked in the heat. Outside we could hear the cries of summer students playing touch football. In the course of an afternoon the yellow sunlight moved across old group pictures of the biology faculty. I became bewitched by the presence of the building; for minutes at a stretch I sat on the floor and watched the motes rise and fall in the sunlight. I called Harry’s attention to the presence but he shrugged and went on with his work. He was absolutely unaffected by the singularities of time and place. His abode was everywhere. It was all the same to him whether he catheterized a pig at four o’clock in the afternoon in New Orleans or at midnight
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