Abstract
This chapter shows that Oakeshott’s philosophy is relevant to debates in international theory. It demonstrates that the critique of rationalism in politics is linked to the second Great Debate between classical and scientific approaches that was developed in the second half of the twentieth century. It shows that in Oakeshott’s texts there are references to Morgenthau’s critique of scientific politics, and that Hedley Bull’s argument against the scientific approach resembles Oakeshott’s one against rationalism. The chapter also highlights some of the differences between Oakeshott’s conception of history and those defended by the English School. The relevance of Oakeshott’s philosophy for the development of the so-called normative turn in International Relations is demonstrated. Finally, the chapter highlights some of the similarities between Oakeshott’s epistemology and recent constructivist literature.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Adler, E., and V. Pouliot. 2011. International Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Astrov, A. 2005. On World Politics: R.G. Collingwood, M. Oakeshott and Neotraditionalism in International Relations. New York: Palgrave.
Ayer, A.J. 2001. Logic, Truth and Logic. London: Penguin.
Bain, W 2007. Are There Any Lessons of History? The English School and the Activity of Being an Historian. International Politics 44: 513–530.
Bartelson, J. 1995. A Genealogy of Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bentley, M. 2011. The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boucher, D. 1984. The Creation of the Past: British Idealism and Michael Oakeshott’s Philosophy of History. History and Theory 23: 193–214.
Boucher, D. 1993. Human Conduct, History, and Social Science in the Works of R.G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott. New Literary History 24(3): 697–717.
Boucher, D. 1998. Political Theories of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, C. 1992. International Relations. New Normative Approaches. New York: Columbia University Press.
——— 2006. Philosophie Politique et Relations Internationales Anglo-Américaine ou Pourquoi Existe-t-il une Théorie Internationale? Études Internationales 37(2): 223–240.
Brown, C. 1994. The Ethics of Political Restructuring in Europe. The Perspective of Constitutive Theory. In Political Restructuring in Europe. Ethical Perspectives, ed. C. Brown, 163–185. New York: Routledge.
——— 2001. Understanding International Relations, 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
——— 2012. The “Practice Turn,” Phronesis and Classical Realism: Towards a Phronetic International Political Theory? Millennium—Journal of International Studies 40: 439–456.
Bull, H. 1966a. International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach. World Politics 18: 361–377.
Bull, H. 2000. International Relations as an Academic Pursuit. In Hedley Bull on International Society, eds. K. Alderson and A. Hurrell, 246–264. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Butterfield, H. 1944. The English Man and His History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
——— 1949. The Origin of Modern Science 1300– 1800, London: G. Bell.
Butterfield, H. 1959. The Whig Interpretation of History. London: Bell and Sons.
Buzan, B. 2001. The English school: An Underexploited Resource in IR. Review of International Studies 27(3): 471–488.
Buzan, B. 2004. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buzan, B., and R. Little. 2000. International Systems in World History. Remaking the Study of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chang, H. 2009. We Have Never Been Whiggish (About Phlogiston). Centaurus 51(4): 239–264.
D’ORO, G. 2014. Collingwood and Oakeshott. History and Idealism. In The Routledge Companion to Hermeneutics, eds. J. Malpas and H.H. Gander, 191–203. London: Routledge.
Dunne, T. 1995. The Social Construction of International Society. European Journal of International Relations 1(3): 367–389.
Dunne, T. 1998. Inventing International Society: A History of the English School. London: Macmillan.
Foucault, M. 2003. Society Must Be Defended. Lectures at the Collège de France. New York: Picador.
Grant, R. 1990. Oakeshott. London: Routledge.
Guilhot, N. 2011. The Realist Gambit: Postwar American Political Science and the Birth of IR Theory. In Guilhot, N. ed. The Invention of International Relations Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 128–161.
Haddock, B. 1996. Michael Oakeshott: “Rationalism in Politics”. In The Political Classics: Green to Dworkin, eds. M. Forsyth and M. Keens-Soper, 100–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hall, A.R. 1983. On Whiggism. History of Science 21: 45–58.
Hall, I. 2006. The International Thought of Martin Wight. New York: Palgrave.
Hamati-Ataya, I. 2012. Beyond (Post)Positivism: The Missed Promises of Systemic Pragmatism. International Studies Quarterly 56: 291–305.
Hempel, C.G. 1942. The Function of General Laws in History. The Journal of Philosophy. 39(2): 35–48.
Hoffmann, S.H. 1959. International Relations: The Long Road to Theory. World Politics 11(3): 346–277.
Jacobs, S., and I. Tregenza. 2014. Rationalism and Tradition: The Popper–Oakeshott Conversation. European Journal of Political Theory 13(1): 3–24.
Jardine, N. 2003. Whigs and Histories. Herbert Butterfield and the Historiography of Science. History of Science 41: 125–140.
Jeffery, R. 2005. Tradition as Invention: The “Traditions Tradition” and the History of Ideas in International Relations. Millennium—Journal of International Studies 34(1): 57–84.
Kaplan, M. 1957. System and Process in International Politics New York: Wiley.
——— 1961. Problems of Theory Building and Theory Confirmation in International Politics. World Politics 14(1): 6–24.
Kaplan, M. 1966. The New Great Debate: Traditionalism vs. Science in International Relations. World Politics 19(1): 1–20.
Kratochwil, F.V. 1989. Rules, Norms and Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kratochwil, F.V. 2014. The Status of Law in World Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Linklater, A., and H. Suganami. 2006. The English School of International Relations. A Contemporary Reassessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mcintyre, K. 2011. Herbert Butterfield. History, Providence, and Skeptical Politics. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books.
Molloy, S. 2004. Truth, Power, Theory: Hans Morgenthau’s Formulation of Realism. Diplomacy & Statecraft 15(1): 1–34.
Morgenthau, H.J. 1946. Scientific Man Versus Power Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
——— 1955. Reflections on the State of Political Science. The Review of Politics 17(4): 431–460.
——— 1970. Truth and Power. Essays of a Decade 1960–1970. New York: Praeger.
——— 1985. Politics Among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace, 6th edn. New York: Knopf.
Nardin, T. 1983. Law, Morality and the Relations of States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Nardin, T. 2001. The Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press.
——— 2008. Theorising the International Rule of Law. Review of International Studies 34(3): 385–401.
Neufeld, M. 1993. Interpretation and the “Science” of International Relations. Review of International Studies 19(1): 39–61.
Oakeshott, M. 1933. Experience and Its Modes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oakeshott, M. 1975. On Human Conduct. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
——— 1991. In Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Ed. T. Fuller. 2nd edn. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
——— 1993a. Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life. Ed. T. Fuller. New Haven-London: Yale University Press.
——— 1993b. Morality and Politics in Modern Europe. Ed. S.R. Letwin. New Haven-London: Yale University Press.
——— 1999. On History and Other Essays. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
——— 2004. What is History and Other Essays. Ed. L. O’Sullivan. Exeter: Imprint Academic.
——— 2006. Lectures in the History of Political Thought. Eds. L. O’Sullivan and T. Nardin. Exeter: Imprint Academic.
——— 2007. The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence. Essays and Reviews 1926–1951. Ed. L. O’Sullivan. Exeter: Imprint Academic.
Onuf, N. 1989. World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. London: Routledge.
Onuf, N. 2013. Making Sense, Making Worlds. constructivism in Social Theory and International Relations. London and New York: Routledge.
Orsi, D. 2015b. Oakeshott on Practice, Normative Thought and Political Philosophy. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23(3): 545–568.
O’Sullivan, L. 2003a. Oakeshott on History. Exeter: Imprint Academic.
——— 2003b. Introduction. In Oakeshott, M. What is History? And Other Essays, ed. L. O’Sullivan, 1–30. Exeter: Imprint Academic.
——— 2012. World of Experience: History. In The Cambridge Companion to Oakeshott, ed. E. Podoksik, 42–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Sullivan, L. 2000. Michael Oakeshott on European Political History. History of Political Thought 21(1): 132–151
O’Sullivan, N. 2012. Oakeshott on Civil Association. In A Companion to Oakeshott, eds. P. Franco and L. Marsh, 290–231. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press.
Rengger, N. 2005. Tragedy or Scepticism? Defending the Anti-Pelagian Mind in World Politics. International Relations 19(3): 321–328.
Reus-Smit, C. 1999. The Moral Purpose of the State. Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
——— 2002. Imagining Society. Constructivism and the English School. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 4(3): 487–509.
——— 2003a. Constructivism. In Theories of International Relations, 3rd edn, eds. S. Burchill and A. Liklater, 188–211. New York: Palgrave.
Risse, T. 2000. “Let’s Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics. International Organisation 54(1): 1–39.
Ruggie, J.G. 1993. Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations. International Organisation 47(1): 139–174.
Smith, T.W. 1996. Michael Oakeshott on History, Practice and Political Theory. History of Political Thought XVIII(4): 591–614.
Smith, T.W. 1999. International Relations and History. London: Routledge.
Weldon, T.D. 1956. Political Principles. In Philosophy, Politics and Society, ed. P. Laslett, 22–34. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wendt, A. 1992. Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics. International Organization 46(2): 391–425.
Wendt, A. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wight, M. 1966. Why There is No International Theory. In Diplomatic Investigations, eds. H. Butterfield and M. Wight, 17–34. London: Allen & Unwin.
Wight, M. 1991. International Theory. The Three Traditions. Eds. G. Wight and H. Bull. Leicester & London: Leicester University Press.
Williams, M.C. 2013. In the Beginning: The International Relations Enlightenment and the End of International Relations Theory. European Journal of International Relations 19(3): 647–655.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Orsi, D. (2016). Philosophy and International Relations. In: Michael Oakeshott's Political Philosophy of International Relations. International Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38785-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38785-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-38784-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-38785-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)