"A philosophical essay leaves much to the reader, often saying too little for fear of saying too much; its attention is concentrated, but it does not stay to cross all the ts of the argument; its mood is cautious without being defensive; it is personal but never merely 'subjective'; it does not dissemble the conditionality of the conclusions it throws up and although it may enlighten it does not instruct. It is, in short, a well-considered intellectual adventure recollected in tranquility."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Historians from EnglandPhilosophers from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandPeople from LondonCritics from England
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Preface
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Oakeshott
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Michael Oakeshott
Michael Joseph Oakeshott (11 December 1901 – 19 December 1990) was an English philosopher and political theorist who wrote on the philosophies of history, religion, aesthetics, education, and law.
22 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Michael Oakeshott →
Related Quotes
"Experience to be experience must be reality; truth to be true must be true of reality. Experience, truth and reality …"
"By one road or another, by conviction, by its supposed inevitability, by its alleged success, or even quite unreflect…"
"The general character and disposition of the Rationalist are, I think, not difficult to identify. At bottom he stands…"
"By a pardonable abridgment of history, the Rationalist character may be seen springing from the exaggeration of Bacon…"
"Rationalist politics, I have said, are the politics of the felt need, the felt need not qualified by a genuine, concr…"
"Rationalism in politics, as I have interpreted it, involves an identifiable error, a misconception with regard to the…"
"The predicament of our time is that the Rationalists have been at work so long on their project of drawing off the li…"
"To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to myste…"
"Poetry is a sort of truancy, a dream within the dream of life, a wild flower planted among our wheat."
"Whatever is satisfactory in experience is true, and it is true because it is satisfactory."