Michael Oakeshott Association

One piece of content that we will not be migrating from the old site to this blog is the extract from Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net, which was included on the old site because some of Oakeshott’s friends suspected that he, rather than Wittgenstein, had provided the basis for Murdoch’s character Hugo.

Well, it seems the friends were wrong. According to 2007 correspondence in the New York Review of Books, Hugo was based on neither Oakeshott nor Wittgenstein, but on Wittgenstein’s pupil Yorick Smythies.

The rumored affair between Oakeshott and Murdoch has not been similarly disproved.

Michael Oakeshott, RIP, by Jeffrey Hart, was published in National Review, 1991 read on

Michael Oakeshott: The Anti-Rationalist, by Kenneth Minogue, was published in National Review in 2005 (External Link) read on

"Michael Oakeshott: Rationalism and self-serving in Politics", A.D Harvey's quite critical look at "Rationalism in Politics" (the 1947 essay, not the book), was published in ... read on

Elizabeth Corey's review article "The World of Michael Oakeshott" was published in Modern Age, Summer 2006 (External Link). Corey covers several of the recent books on ... read on

Robert Devigne's review of Paul Franco's Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction in the Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2005 (External Link). read on

Links to several reviews of Efraim Podoksik's In Defence of Modernity, at Efraim's own web site. The review authors include: George Feaver, Times Literary Supplement John Charvet, History ... read on

I think the title of this review essay by Leslie Armour was probably supposed to be "Michael Oakeshott - A Fish too big or too ... read on

"A Skeptical Conservative", by Neil McInnes, was published in The National Interest, Fall 2000 edn (external link). It is available online via the following: Find Articles High Beam ... read on

A message from David Boucher (April 2007): ON 20th April, 1955 Michael Oakeshott delivered a lecture at the Ateneo in Madrid as part of a series ... read on