On Oakeshott's Skepticism Conservatism

Rationalism is one face of the modern society. Rationalist as the spirit of the times in the political world, is the political rationalism. Political rationalism can be analyzed for the three propositions.1) Reason and the nature of things is the same, because the only reason to determine knowledge. So2) Reason is the only reasonable knowledge of the style, the real political knowledge can only be rational knowledge, the rational construction of ideology.3) Since the rationality or ideology can find the truth and the perfection of human society, the target of government action should be based on rational discovery in mind, because the authority of government is a powerful-if not all-powerful-and no one does not desire truth and goodness. Oakeshott, as a skeptic questioned the three propositions of political rationalism. First of all, the so-called essence of things, that is really, does not exist in the world of experience behind, but in the empirical world of. When the experience of the world showing a holistic and coherent, then it is real. Since the world has not an eternal nature, then the rational self-proclaimed eternal perception is an empty promise. Secondly, the so-called rational certainty of knowledge is a knowledge-style biased, that it ignores the other's knowledge of style. In addition, the reason why rational knowledge to give people a certain impression, because it is an abstract concept system. In this sense, the rational knowledge that is sweeping logic, at the same time as an abstraction and meaningless. Therefore, the rational need of traditional treatment, as he who be able to work, it will not be reduced to the abstraction. Third, since the rational existence of its own defects, then not only government action should not accept the rationality of the regulatory guide, and even the government itself is simply no external goal-the Government should not be the pursuit of perfection, the proper functions of government is to maintain the Community order. And how to guard the order of the Community, it is entirely a matter of historical contingency, does not require a complete theoretical description of. This view in the context of reasonable pluralism fact, it is more reasonable.The Oakeshott critical thinking in the elucidation of the process of political rationalism can be called a skeptical conservatism. The one hand, this doctrine strongly pointed out the shortcomings of political rationalism; the other hand, the doctrine because the background of the skepticism has a strong affinity with Weber on modern society. The purpose of this paper is to discribe the Albright critical of political rationalism, and explain this affinity between his skepticism conservatism and the modern society.