On human conduct
By: Michael Oakeshott.
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1990
Place of publication: Oxford; Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 329
Subjects: Conduct of life; Social contract; Europe -- Politics and government -- 1492-1648
Description: On Human Conduct is composed of three connected essays. Each has its own concern: the first with theoretical understanding, and with human conduct in general; the second with an ideal mode of human relationship which the author has called civil association; and the third with that ambiguous, historic association commonly called a modern European state. Running through the work is Professor Oakshott's belief in philosophical reflection as an adventure: the adventure of one who seeks to understand in other terms what he already understands, and where the understanding is sought is a disclosure of the conditions of the understanding enjoyed and not a substitute for it. Its most appropriate expression is an essay, which, he writes, "does not dissemble the conditionality of the conclusions it throws up and although it may enlighten it does not instruct.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
First published 1975.