ABSTRACT

In the mid-1970s, more than forty years after his first book-length text, Oakeshott restated his philosophical system in On Human Conduct. In this book (made up of three interrelated essays) he exhibits a remarkable degree of consistency with his early work.1 We find many of the same claims that were reasoned through in EM and many of the same concerns. For example, there are eloquent passages about religion, as well as a challenge to the rationalist, now understood as a ‘theoretician’. The most notable difference is the attempt to come to grips with an understanding of human conduct that explicitly incorporates politics. However, what he says about politics is intertwined with his concern to illustrate the character of human conduct within a moral context.