THE IDEA OF THE CIVIL CONDITION IN ENGLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT: MICHAEL OAKESHOTT ON HISTORY AND THEORY

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1 ECPR WORKSHOP: THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL CONCEPTS 14 TH -19 TH APRIL 2000 COPENHAGEN DENMARK THE IDEA OF THE CIVIL CONDITION IN ENGLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT: MICHAEL OAKESHOTT ON HISTORY AND THEORY PETER LASSMAN DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM BIRMINGHAM B15 2TT UNITED KINGDOM

2 The idea of the civil condition became a central concept in the later political philosophy of the English theorist Michael Oakeshott. In elaborating this concept Oakeshott illuminated a topic which is of central significance for a major component of an English (or, perhaps, one ought to say British) tradition of political thought. At the same time it is apparent that in terms of the intellectual sources of this idea Oakeshott was showing that traditions of political discourse, although clearly possessing distinct national characteristics, ought not to be thought of in isolation from those of neighbouring traditions. On closer inspection Oakeshott s concept of the civil condition, which is often criticised for being excessively insular in character, has a distinctly European dimension. The significance of Oakeshott s thought here is that he is one of the few modern political theorists who has reflected deeply upon the meaning of the concept of politics. At the same time he has made it a central element in his account such that consideration of this topic can be successful only if it encompasses a history of the concept. In this way Oakeshott s approach has many similarities to the Begriffsgeschichte of Koselleck. This is not surprising in light of the fact that Oakeshott has been influenced by the Idealist tradition in both its German and British versions. An essential aspect of Oakeshott s style (not method) is to trace the history of the usage of a concept in order to show both its inherent complexity and, often, its internal tensions and contradictions. Of course, from a strict Skinnerian point of view there is something suspect about an operation of this kind. But it can be argued that even if one disagrees with the outcome of particular investigations carried out in the 2

3 Oakeshottian style it does have the merit of not losing sight of the perennial questions or, at the least, the remarkable continuity of the vocabulary of politics. Oakeshott, who was originally trained as a historian, is especially interesting because throughout his work there is a concern with the nature and autonomy of what he refers to as modes of understanding. There is no political mode of understanding as such. The appropriate modes of understanding here are either historical or philosophical. Oakeshott has been concerned to ask two kinds of questions from a political philosophical standpoint. The first concerns the nature of political beliefs, concepts, and political philosophy itself. The second is concerned with our understanding of the character of the modern state i. The Civil Condition The central concept in Oakeshott s later work is that of the civil condition. This is also referred to as societas. Although this is not a specifically English concept it does seem to have a particular resonance with much of what one might call the English tradition of political discourse. Of course, one must not overlook the obvious fact that Oakeshott himself is English and, more controversially perhaps, that one could argue that he is, more to the point, a representative of a particularly English style of Conservative political thought ii. The question of the intrinsically political character of writing about the history and philosophy of political concepts is a question that will be discussed later. The most detailed discussion of the concept of the civil condition appears in Oakeshott s major work On Human Conduct iii. The format of this book is self- 3

4 consciously modelled on that of Thomas Hobbes s Leviathan. As with Hobbes, whose Leviathan begins with Of Man before it discusses Of Commonwealth, the first of the three sections into which On Human Conduct is organised is concerned with the Theoretical Understanding of Human Conduct. This is followed by the section On the Civil Condition which, in turn, leads to the third and final section On the Character of a Modern European State. Oakeshott defines the civil condition in a variety of ways. To begin with he makes it clear that the civil condition or civil relationship is an idealisation. It is a certain mode of association, one among others. It necessarily excludes relationships contradictory of itself (as friendship excludes enmity); but while it is distinct from relationships contrary to itself, it does not exclude persons who enjoy those relationships. This, for Oakeshott, is the relationship of civility iv. According to Oakeshott this particular concept has many antecedents but there have been very few satisfactory attempts to capture its essential properties. The temptation has always been to allow considerations of contingent historical circumstances to detract from the necessary theoretical task. Oakeshott refers to Aristotle, Hobbes, and Hegel as the three most significant theorists who have been able to see most clearly what is involved in reflection upon the nature of the civil condition. In defining the idea of the civil condition Oakeshott points to its most general features. To begin with it is a relationship between human beings. This might sound obvious. The point here is that the concept of a human being requires some theoretical elaboration. For Oakeshott human beings are to be understood in terms of certain postulates. Human beings are free, intelligent agents disclosing and enacting 4

5 themselves by responding to their understood contingent situations. Furthermore, it is important to recognise that a human relationship is not a process made up of functionally or causally related components; it is intelligent relationship enjoyed only in virtue of having been learned and understood or misunderstood v. Civitas, Oakeshott s term for the ideal of the civil condition is, therefore, to be understood as an engagement of human conduct. This means that cives are not neurophysiological organisms, genetic characters, psychological egos or components of a social process, but free agents whose responses to one another s actions and utterances is one of understanding; and civil association is not organic, evolutionary, teleological, functional, or syndromic relationship but an understood relationship of intelligent agents vi. Oakeshott s thought is especially interesting for the way in which it is concerned to show how an elucidation of the nature of politics and the character of the modern European state is inseparable from an understanding of the history of political thought. Human Conduct and The Concept of a Practice The argument concerning the nature of the civil condition rests upon the argument that is set out most clearly in Oakeshott s work in the first section of On Human Conduct. Here the key concept is that of a practice. For Oakeshott human activity cannot be understood apart from the recognition of individual freedom. In effect Oakeshott is working with the categorial distinction between the theoretical engagements of the interpretive understanding of what he calls human goings-on and the causal explanation of processes. In away that is similar to the Anglo- 5

6 American tradition of Wittgensteinian philosophy Oakeshott sees so-called sciences of human conduct such as sociology and psychology to be bound up in the conceptual confusion brought about by attempting to combine both modes of inquiry. In order to understand the reasoning behind this concept of civil association and the linked idea of politics it is important to see that the starting point for Oakeshott s theorising is the postulate of individual human freedom. Human action cannot be recognised as being human without the recognition of its intrinsic freedom. The central component of human freedom here is the attribution and the recognition of reflective consciousness vii. Conduct between human beings is to be understood in terms of the concept of a practice. The Concept of Politics. The point of this conceptual elaboration is to prepare the way for an argument concerning the way in which politics ought properly to be understood. Politics, according to Oakeshott s account, is an activity or set of activities that are best understood as belonging uniquely to the civil condition. The proper use of the concept of politics is only in terms of the public affairs (respublica) of civil association. More importantly and also more controversially politics is categorically distinguished from ruling viii. The reasoning here is that although both politics and ruling are to be understood as activities politics is an activity that is concerned primarily with argument and persuasion. Nor is political activity to be identified with particular persons, places, or occasions. Politics is a focus of attention and a subject of discourse. 6

7 The attempt to delimit the concept of politics is clearly bound up with the interpretation of the civil condition. In fact, the argument is much stronger: the activity of politics is to be understood as belonging uniquely to the civil condition. As a defining characteristic of the civil condition is the absence of any common purpose in terms of which individuals could be regarded as members of a joint enterprise then it is not permissible for them to make managerial decisions concerning the satisfaction of common wants. Given this account it follows that use of the word politics to refer to the activity of deliberation or negotiation among agents who are associated in the pursuit of a common purpose is misleading. Furthermore, where there is a contingent engagement which could be referred to as politics within such forms of association it is to be regarded as being a derivative usage. Politics is seen as possessing a public character in a sense that it is unique. Political engagement is explicitly and exclusively concerned with respublica ix. When looked at in these terms politics is to be firmly distinguished from ruling. Oakeshott argues that although we may find deliberation and argument in the practice of ruling these activities do not play the same role as they do in the practice of politics. Deliberation within the practice of ruling is concerned with the contingent interpretation of law and not with the desirability of its prescriptions. Furthermore, Oakeshott maintains that one cannot qualify the concept of rule with the adjective political. It does not, he argues, identify a particular kind or manner of ruling, nor does it distinguish a certain sort of constitution of a ruling authority or a certain procedure for constituting or recognizing the validity of an office of authority x. Which is not to say that rulers may not participate in politics. But, when they do so, it is not as rulers but as participants in civil association. 7

8 Interestingly, Oakeshott sees the widespread confusion between politics and ruling to be derived to a large extent from the inheritance of the Aristotelian vocabulary. Here there is no clear distinction made between the two concepts; in fact there is no clear cut distinction between the political and the civil. According to Oakeshott, the concept of politike refers here to the art of caring for and bettering the public concern of the polis. The distinction between this activity of caring for the polis and the practice of ruling is reflected in the ambiguous concept of the politikos that seems to refer to both. The concept of politeia is deeply ambiguous too. It refers to both the ways in which citizens are related to each other, the mode human association, as well as the specific nature of the rule of a politikos that is, for example, to be distinguished from the rule of a master over his slaves. It also refers to a particular form of constitution of the polis. This is, for Oakeshott, a basic source of the conceptual confusion involved in our use of the concept of politics. An interesting example of this confusion is to be found in Sir John Fortescue s On the Governance of England xi. Fortescue was the most important English political thinker of the fifteenth century. Fortescue saw the English state as a dominion political and royal (dominium politicum et regale). The key to Fortescue s idea of politics lies in his argument that there are two kinds of kingdoms, one of which is a lordship called in Latin dominium regale, and the other is called dominium politicum et regale. And they differ in that the first king may rule his people by such laws as he makes himself and therefore he may set upon them taxes and other impositions, such as he wills himself, without their assent. The second king may not rule his people by other laws than such as they assent to and therefore he may set upon them no impositions without their assent xii. The second preferred form is one in which the king rules but 8

9 he does so assisted by the wisdom and counsel of many. The significance of this usage, for Oakeshott, is that it lead to a further conceptual confusion whereby the term political is used both to vaguely specify a form of ruling and, at the same time, to commend or denigrate. The confusion is even worse, it is argued, when we qualify politics with a term taken from the vocabulary of ruling. Democratic politics would be such a confused usage. It follows that the concept of politics is not be confused with the vocabulary of authority. The adjective political cannot meaningfully qualify the expressions which specify the constitutional shape of an office of authority, the quality of that authority or the more general beliefs in terms of which such an office may be alleged or acknowledged to have authority. If the term civil or corporate were substituted for that of political the meaning of such expressions as political democracy or political institutions would be much clearer xiii. Furthermore, it is in keeping with this distinction between the activities of ruling and of politics that the language of politics is also not to be confused with the vocabulary of power. According to Oakeshott s account when we use the terms politics and political in connection to the modern European state we ought not, primarily, to be referring to the languages of either power or authority. The most appropriate location for these concepts is in discourse concerning the engagements of governments. Political discourse is understood here to be concerned with that which is to be authoritatively prescribed. The actual substantive content or character of such discourse itself derives from that mode of association that is attributed to a state. If a state is understood as a civil association or societas then office holders are understood as guardians of the 9

10 rules or laws that constitute the terms of that association. According to this interpretation politics is to be understood as deliberation about the desirability of these laws and rules, including possible changes, in terms of current ideas of civility. Although those who occupy offices of rule will be expected to participate in deliberation this is in no way a necessary precondition for political engagement. The significance of this account of politics becomes clearer when it is connected to the idea of the inherent duality in our conception of the modern European State. If we accept Oakeshott s account the conceptual confusion concerning our concept of politics and the political runs quite deep. The argument here is that we must separate conceptually an office of authority, an apparatus of power, and a mode of association and recognise that each possesses its own appropriate vocabulary. In making these distinctions between the separate activities of politics and ruling Oakeshott is making a similar point to that made by Gallie in his remarks upon the essential duality of politics xiv. In his important thesis concerning essentially contested concepts Gallie argued that there are concepts that refer to a number of organised or semi-organised human activities. The basic fact about them is that we soon see that there is no one use of any of them which can be set up as its generally accepted and therefore correct or standard use xv. It follows that the concept of politics is one such concept. The essential contestability or essential duality of the concepts of politics and of the political resides in the fact that, according to Gallie, our concept of politics is irreducibly two-sided or Janus-faced. The basic problem with the classical tradition of political theory is that it has tended to assume that our concept of politics is unified and that, as a consequence, there is no fundamental barrier to the creation of a unified theory. xvi 10

11 Unfortunately for those who advocate such a view the unavoidable ambiguity embedded in our conceptual vocabulary prevents this. The ambiguity that is being referred to here is the following: we use the words politics and the political to refer to at least two sets of distinct activities, relations, and problems. These are the relations and problems that occur between rulers and ruled, on the one hand, and on the other we refer to a series of activities which, while they may be associated with ruling are also applicable to forms of association that take place beyond that relationship. The concept of politics refers to both that kind of ruling that is generally exercised by states and to what Gallie calls 'politicking'. The latter term encompasses such activities as competitive claims of criticism and complaint, bargaining, debating, converting, squaring, and fixing. Of course, the two instances of these different senses of the concept might coincide but, and this is the important point, they can be, and often are, radically opposed to each other. The significant contrast here is with a state understood as a universitas or enterprise association. Here politics takes the form of deliberation about managerial decisions to deploy resources in pursuit of a common purpose. It is at this point that it becomes clear that the full significance of this account of 'politics and the political can only be appreciated in the additional context of an interpretation of the nature of the modern European State. This interpretation of the concepts of politics and of the political has also been expressed in terms of another distinction. This is the distinction that Oakeshott had made in an earlier essay between the politics of faith and the politics of scepticism. It is in making the distinction between the two modes of association in this manner 11

12 that the proposed affinity between the idea of civil association as societas and a specifically English style of political thought and practice is maintained. Political scepticism from the late sixteenth century onwards is characterised by the belief that human projects, especially when the product of large-scale design, were unlikely to be successful. Although there are many European contributors to the mainstream of modern sceptical thought it is Oakeshott s contention that English political thought and practice added an essential ingredient. This ingredient had its origin in the medieval style of government. What this style offered was an idea of governing that was framed in terms of the practice of courts of law. Government was understood as a judicial activity. The consequence was that on any reading of its office and competence, a court of law is not the kind of institution which is appropriate to take the initiative in organising the perfection of mankind; where governing is understood as the judicial provision of remedies for wrongs suffered, a sceptical style of politics obtrudes xvii. This style of government is shown most clearly in the history and character of the English Parliament. The Parliament of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was understood as a court of law and was itself modelled upon the courts of law that already existed. As the sceptical style was able to develop upon this foundation it appears that England has been peculiarly the home of this understanding of government. This style of politics is marked by its rejection of the belief that governing is the imposition of a comprehensive pattern of activity upon a community and a consequent suspicion of government invested with overwhelming power, and a recognition of the contingency of every political arrangement and the unavoidable arbitrariness of most xviii. 12

13 An essential component of the early distinction between the politics of faith and the politics of scepticism was the recognition of the distinction between politics and religion. The work of Hume and Burke, in particular, as well as that of Tom Paine was concerned to remove religious enthusiasm from politics. However, it has to be recognised that the problem of the relationship between politics and religion is one that can never be solved. There is a constant tension between the politics of faith and the politics of scepticism. What is it that the politics of scepticism seeks to defend? The answer that Oakeshott sees embedded in English political thought and practice is the defence of the value of peace and civil order or civil association. It was in eighteenth century England that a recognisably modern form of political scepticism first emerged. One important aspect of the general acceptance, at the time, of a sceptical style was the recognition that foreign policy could not be carried on in te manner of a religious crusade. The Modern European State Oakeshott is concerned to emphasise the remarkable novelty of the modern European state. He argues that this form of association that we now recognise as the states of modern Europe was the outcome of human choices, but none the product of a design xix. The history of modern Europe can be looked at as the story of the emergence of a novel mode of association, of the exploration of the ambiguities of its character and of the reflective engagement to understand it xx. It is this reflective engagement to understand the puzzling character of the modern state that is at the centre of Oakeshott s enquiry. Furthermore, in Oakeshott s view we are able to recognise the existence of a continuous story of attempts to develop a truly theoretical understanding of the experience of living in a modern state. 13

14 The central part of Oakeshott s argument rests upon the idea that two concepts have emerged from the fifteenth century onwards, in terms of which the state has been understood. These are the concepts of societas and universitas. These two concepts were in use in the late Middle Ages and were put to work in order to make sense of the new emerging reality of the state. The problem, however, from Oakeshott s point of view, is that the precision in the initial contrast drawn by these two concepts has been lost. The addition of the concept of society into modern political discourse has only added to the confusion. Oakeshott, however, wants to deploy these two concepts in order to construct an argument about the tensions involved in our contemporary understanding of the nature of the state. The modern state may perhaps be understood as an unresolved tension between the two irreconcilable dispositions represented by the words societas and universitas xxi. In fact, Oakeshott argues, this tension was recognised with the emergence of the state when it was often confusingly identified as a societas cum universitate. In early modern Europe the two concepts of societas and universitas presented themselves as aids for reflection upon the emerging reality of the European state. The difficulty here is that they point in two different directions. What does Oakeshott mean by these terms? He identifies a societas as body of agents who, by choice or circumstance, are related to one another so as to compose an identifiable association of a certain sort. The tie which joins them, and in respect of 14

15 which each recognizes himself to be socius, is not that of an engagement in an enterprise to pursue a common substantive purpose or to promote a common interest, but that of loyalty to one another, the conditions of which may achieve the formality denoted by the kindred word legality xxii. The essential point here is that a societas is understood in terms of a body of formal rules rather than in terms of a substantive relationship with a common programme of action. Speakers of a common language constitute a societas as they share a body of rules but the language itself has no purpose nor does it direct speakers in what to say. Although the activity of ruling is not essential for the constitution of a societas this concept does, Oakeshott argues, offer a way of understanding the modern European state. However, this understanding is most appropriate when the state is governed by the rule of law. The conditions of association within a societas are best specified by a system of law. In contrast to the idea of an association understood as a societas Oakeshott argues that it is possible to see another way of interpreting the nature of the European state. As with the notion of societas the origin of this idea is to be found in the work of the Roman jurists. Their idea of universitas is presented as the contrasting concept to that of societas. A universitas is understood initially in terms of a partnership of persons which is itself understood in terms of the analogy of a natural person. The basic point here that Oakeshott wants to make is that the mode of association understood in terms of universitas is an association of persons organised with an identifiable purpose in mind. An association of persons organised as a universitas exists in virtue of its pursuit of a substantive purpose or end. It also means that as such an association was constituted in terms of a common purpose those who joined were making a deliberate choice to pursue this purpose. 15

16 The significance of the legal fiction of regarding such an association of persons organised in terms of the pursuit of a common purpose as a persona ficta is that it offered a means for the understanding of the emergence of the state in early modern Europe. A state understood as a universitas is an association of intelligent agents who recognize themselves to be engaged upon the joint enterprise of seeking the satisfaction of some common substantive want; a many become one on account of their common engagement and jointly seized of complete control over the manner in which it is pursued xxiii. It is important to note that the interpretation of the development of reflection upon the development of the European State in terms of the contrast between these two concepts is not a straightforward affair. The texts of political writers do not line up, for the most part, either for or against one of these two concepts, in a clear-cut manner. Furthermore, there is no clear connection between positions taken on this question and positions taken on other related issues. Here, for example, the idea of the derivation of civil authority in terms of a contract or covenant can be used equally in support of an interpretation of the state as a either a societas or a universitas. Thomas Hobbes, according to Oakeshott s interpretation, used this idea in order to demonstrate that the civil association ought to be seen as a societas. It is there to create and maintain a sovereign civil authority but not to unite its subjects in pursuit of a common substantive enterprise. However, this notion of the social contract could equally be used to argue for a vision of the state as a body of persons united upon a common enterprise. 16

17 What is the History of Political Thought a History of? Oakeshott s account of the character of the modern European state is itself an essay in the history of political ideas. However, in terms of his own idea of historiography this essay is a backward-looking search for origins, a developmentalist narrative whose purpose, stated at the outset, is to derive the moral relationships that ground the civil constitution of modern European states xxiv. It is an interpretation that has implications for our understanding of the nature of the history of political thought In the interpretation of politics and the political advanced here an understanding of the work of Hobbes plays a central role. For Oakeshott Hobbes s Leviathan is the greatest, perhaps the sole, masterpiece of political philosophy written in the English language xxv. In considering the history of political theory or political thought Oakeshott makes an important but often overlooked point. It might seem obvious but when we consider the history of thinking about politics we ought to recognise that we are dealing with several different and distinct styles of thought. Reflection about politics can take place on three main levels. Political reflection may remain on the level of the determination of means, or it may strike out for the consideration of ends. Its inspiration may be directly practical, te modifications of the arrangements of a political order in accordance with the perception of an immediate benefit; or it may be practical, but less directly so, guided by general ideas. Or again, springing from an experience of political life, it may seek a generalisation of that experience in a doctrine. And reflection is apt to flow from one level to another in an unbroken movement, following the mood of the thinker. Political philosophy may be understood to be what occurs when this movement of reflection takes a certain 17

18 direction and achieves a certain level, its characteristic being the relation of political life, and te values and purposes pertaining to it, to the entire conception of the world that belongs to a civilization xxvi. Thus there is reflection that takes place among those who are directly engaged in political activity or in governing. This is political thought in the service of political action. Such reflection takes place within an existing framework of methods and institutions. It is the kind of political thought that we might find, for example, in political speeches and in state papers. However, there is a more reflective style of political thought. Here we try to discern principles and general ideas that might explain or justify political activity. This is a level of thinking in which such terms as Liberalism, Socialism, and Democracy are used. Most of the political thought that the historian of political ideas deals with is of this kind. This is the style of thinking that Oakeshott refers to as an abridgement of political conduct into general principles. He is, of course, sceptical about how much such abridgements can offer in the way of enlightenment. The third and much rarer form of political thinking is that represented by what is normally referred to as political philosophy. Hence, the significance of Hobbes Leviathan which is a perfect representative of this form of theorising. Of course, the three levels of political thinking are not always separable from each other but they are concerned with different kinds of questions and they offer different kinds of answers. The point is that as different levels of thinking they ought not to be confused with each other. Clearly, for Oakeshott, the third kind of theorising is the most interesting 18

19 and important. The reason for this is that it is only at this level that we are concerned to reflect upon the place of political activity within the general map of human activity in general xxvii. Our political ideas, therefore, do not exist in a separate compartment from the rest of our ideas. The meaning of those ideas always lies in the way in which the unity of text and context is resolved from their separate existence. This form of reflection has a continual history within European civilization. The proper context for understanding and appreciating a work such as Hobbes Leviathan is, therefore, the history of political philosophy conceived in this manner. Characteristically, Oakeshott argues that political philosophers take a sombre view of the human situation: they deal in darkness. Human life in their writings appears, generally, not as a feast or even as a journey, but as a predicament; and the link between politics and eternity is the contribution the political order is conceived as making to the deliverance of mankind. Even those whose thought is most remote from the violent contrast of dark and light (Aristotle, for example) do not altogether avoid this disposition of mind. And some political philosophers may even be suspected of spreading darkness in order to make their light more acceptable. xxviii The unity of the history of political philosophy reveals an internal variety that divides into three traditions. The reason for this is that political reflection at this level is itself following what Oakeshott discerns as the three main patterns of philosophical reflection in European intellectual history. The first of these traditions so of thought is organised around the concepts of Reason and Nature. The second is that in which the central concepts are Will and Artifice. The third tradition ids that of the Rational Will. The context of works of political philosophy is, to be more specific, one of these three 19

20 intellectual master traditions. Oakeshott does not provide much detail about the content of these traditions. However, the suggestion that Plato s Republic is a clear example of the first kind; that Hegel s Philosophy of Right is the best example of the third; and that Hobbes Leviathan of the second. Reviewing Skinner s The Foundations of Modern Political Thought Oakeshott observes that this work contains two distinct exercises of the historical imagination. The first is to give an account of late medieval and early modern writings on politics. The other is, contrary to what one might have been lead to expect from Skinner s earlier methodological writings, a design to use these writing to illuminate a more general historical theme. This theme is the emergence of the main elements of a recognizably modern concept of the State xxix. The first account is concerned with texts that are regarded as responses to claims made with respect of the office of ruler, of its authority and of its occupation by a person or persons of a certain kind, which occasionally spilt over into claims in respect of the character of the association ruled xxx. These texts are generally composed of claims and justifications expressed in moral, legal, or theological terms. These are the kinds of texts that Skinner calls ideological. However, the problem here is that such texts, important as they are, do not constitute the whole of political thought. It leaves out both that kind of reflection concerned with administration as well as what we can properly call philosophical reflection. This kind of reflection upon politics is not concerned, or at least, not primarily concerned with, justifications or criticisms of the circumstantial claims of rulers. Thus it appears that when we encounter political thinkers such as Bodin or Marsiglio who achieve the level of philosophical reflection in their work Skinner s 20

21 strategy is to ignore this aspect of their work. In short Oakeshott questions the method according to which we read the relevant texts as always being no more than attempts to solve an immediate and pressing problem. Such attempts are made, according to this account, within the terms offered by the prevailing vocabularies and their attached stock of ideas. A major objection here is that the authors under consideration often understood one another, not in historical, but in philosophical terms. The second theme in Skinner s Foundations is more ambitious. Here the aim is to infer an overall direction in the intellectual adventures of these writers. He wants to show that within the period covered there was a substantial development in political thought so that by the end of the sixteenth century a concept of the state had emerged that we would recognise as modern. Skinner s claim is that there was a definite movement from an idea of a ruler maintaining his state to that of a form of political power separate from both the ruler and the ruled and constituting the supreme political power within a defined territory. Oakeshott is highly suspicious of this central claim. It seems to both a highly controversial interpretation of the available evidence and, at the same time, to be doing more than one would expect on the basis of the arguments set out earlier in Skinner s own methodological essays. Is Skinner, for example, arguing the political thinkers of the thirteenth century set out to create this new understanding of the state? Oakeshott offers an alternative historical sketch. According to this interpretation the idea of the state that Skinner sees as emerging throughout Europe during the period under consideration was far from being such an innovation but was regarded more as an eccentricity. Certainly, such a view of the state has never found a comfortable home in English political thought. The controversial nature of Skinner s claim is evident insofar as he argues that the 21

22 political writers with whom he is dealing can be seen to be laying the ideological foundations of new concept of the state. The point here that Oakeshott wants to make is that it cannot be doubted that such a concept of the state did emerge. But, as he puts it floated around modern Europe, it is more than a little anachronistic to think of it in terms of the metaphor of a construction erected upon a foundation. It is more accurate, in Oakeshott s terms, to see these political thinkers as casuistical moralists and lawyers fumbling for circumstantial arguments to support their clients against claims old and new, which stood in the way or threatened their independence. There is a clear distinction that ought to be made here between the analytical components of a concept and the devious and often logically irrelevant historical circumstances which mediated its emergence xxxi. In contrast to Skinner s account Oakeshott, mischievously, offers what one would expect in terms of a more historically nuanced interpretation. Rather than foundations being laid what we see is not the emergence of a single recognisably modern concept of the state but a variety of disparate conceptions, continuously resuscitated and formulated in later times xxxii. In keeping with the philosophical interpretation put forward in On Human Conduct Oakeshott s version is one in which the states of modern Europe display a much more various and ramshackle structure. The basic point that needs to be made here is that Oakeshott is both presenting an interpretation of an English tradition of political thought from a position that is within that tradition. This complicates matters because it raises the question that is at the heart of his whole approach. Put simply the question is whether it is possible to achieve an understanding of political concepts and ideas that is not itself political. Oakeshott himself is clearly animated by the desire to escape from the 22

23 i Bhiku Parekh, Oakeshott s Theory of Civil Association, Ethics, vol. 106, 1995, ii For example, Anthony Quinton, The Politics of Imperfection. The Religious and secular Traditions off Conservative Thought in England from Hooker to Oakeshott. (London: Faber and Faber, 1978) iii Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1991) iv Oakeshott, p 108 v Oakeshott, p 112 vi Oakeshott, p 112 vii Oakeshott, p 32 viii Oakeshott, p 166 ix Oakeshott, p 163 x Oakeshott, p 167 xi Sir John Fortescue, The Governance of England (1471). A translation into modern English can be found in Sir John Fortescue, On te Laws and Governance of England (ed.) Shelley Lockwood, Cambridge University Press, 1997 xii Fortescue, 83 xiii Oakeshott, The Vocabulary of a Modern European State, Political Studies, Vol. 23,4, 1975, p 412 xiv W.B.Gallie, An Ambiguity in the Idea of Politics and its Practical Implications, Political Studies, vol. 24, 4, 1973 pp xv W.B.Gallie, Philosophy and the Historical Understanding, Chatto and Windus, London, 1964, p 157.The original essay upon which this chapter is based is in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society vol. 66, xvi There is an extended debate concerning Gallie s claim of essential contestability. One of the few examples where the idea has been explicitly used with reference to politics is W.E. Connolly, The Terms of Political Discourse, D.C.Heath, Lexington, 1974 pp 9-44 xvii Oakeshott, The Fortunes of Scepticism, The Times Literary Supplement, March 15 th 1996, p 14 xviii Oakeshott, The Fortunes of Scepticism, p 14 xix Oakeshott, 185 xx Michael Oakeshott, The Vocabulary of a Modern European State, Political Studies, 23,1975, p 319 xxi Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, 201 xxii Oakeshott, 201 xxiii Oakeshott, 205 xxiv T.W.Smith, Michael Oakeshott on History, Practice and Political Theory, History of Political Thought, 27, 4, 1996, p 611 xxv Oakeshott, Introduction to Thomas Hobbes Leviathan (1651), 1946, p viii xxvi Oakeshott, Introduction to Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, pp viii-1x xxvii Oakeshott, Morality and Politics in Modern Europe. The Harvard Lectures. Yale, 1993, p 14 xxviii Oakeshott, Introduction to Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, p x xxix Oakeshott, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, The Historical Journal, vol. 23, no 2, 1980, p 449 xxx Oakeshott, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, p 449 xxxi Oakeshott, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, p 452 xxxii Oakeshott, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, p