Wim,
The first time I read your post I thought, "Yeah, that's what essentially
everyone else has been saying." I left it, read drose's, wrote a post, went
back to re-read old posts to make sure I didn't miss anything, and heaven
forbid, there it was:
You asked me a question. Or, rather, to explain something.
Now, granted, it was about a worthless pile of donkey doo like Michael
Oakeshott (now nobody get mad, the donkey doo I'm referring to are his
opinions, not the man himself; I don't actually know him, he might have been a
nice fellow), but nevertheless I do feel inclined to answer in the hopes that
it helps you or others in formulating reponses to my long lost question.
So, this post is almost entirely about Oakeshott. Stop now if you don't care.
Michael J. Oakeshott was born December 11, 1901. He attended a few
universities, got some degrees, taught in some colleges, served in the British
Army in England, France, and Germany, founded The Cambridge Journal, became a
Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and then held the post of Professor of
Political Science at The London School of Economics and Political Science until
his official retirement in 1967. He died December 19, 1990.
That was the man. As you can see he's a political theorist, not an official
philosopher. Therefore he really doesn't have a full-fledged epistemology to
throw at anyone.
That's not to say he never talked about knowledge. And from this I can
construct a sort of epistemology.
The one thing he did do to knowledge was split it into technical knowledge and
practical knowledge. This is what my essay was on.
Technical knowledge is book learning. Stuff you read, like rules and methods.
Practical knowledge is the type that sinks in "naturally". You can only learn
it from authorities in a tradition of that practice. Like learning how to
cobble shoes from a cobbler.
From here Oakeshott wants to say that Rationalists (anyone who uses reason,
namely anyone more liberal than he) only acknowledge technical knowledge.
People like himself acknowledge both. Here is where Oakeshott jumps to,
"Unless you do something, you don't really know anything about it." There may
be something to that statement. But this is where Oakeshott disallows anyone
who has never participated in politics from ever participating in politics.
Sadly to say, he wasn't a big believer in democracy or even a representative
gov't that listened to the people.
So now you're asking, "What does this have to do with MOQ?"
Well, given how excited everyone gets around here about different styles of
economy and government, it would really suck if Oakeshott was right in
excluding large sections of people from politics. Or even political
discussion. Like the one that was going on last month.
Given Oakeshott's Socratic knifing of knowledge, you might be able to see how
static and dynamic parts of that knowlege play into it. I.e. it doesn't and
that's how I sunk him. Both technical and practical contain static and dynamic
parts. Make no bones about it, Oakeshott was a Victorian. He wants social
patterns to govern intellectual patterns. He admits that something like
Dynamic Quality exists and that's the ingredient that explains good change.
But Oakeshott would be whole-heartedly against Pirsig's Brujo. (Ch. 9) He
would be against that Pueblo Indian going to any authority other than the war
priests. He would have been against the survival of the Zuni with the
ascension of the brujo to governor of Zuni.
If DQ was relegated to a position underneath static patterns, than morally good
change in those static patterns would be negligible. In fact, it wouldn't be
moral. It would be unfortunate.
Or at least, that was my paranoia.
Matt
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