College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Government and Society Student Name:

PSG261 Political Thought ID. Number:
Spring 2021
Dr. Ali Alahbabi

Assignment 2 (10 points)

Due Date: April 17, 2021

Read the instructions carefully. Present your own work. Use your own writing style. Do not
Copy/Cut/Paste texts. Be concise. Observe the deadline. Answer parts A and B.
A. Choose one of the following two political thinkers:
1. Read the textbook Fifty Major Political Thinkers (pages 195-199. Present the main ideas in Sir
Karl Popper’s political thought. Be clear and specific. Focus only on the political thought ideas of
the thinker; no need to describe thinker’s life events. (5 marks)
OR
2. Read the textbook Fifty Major Political Thinkers (pages 199-202). Present the main ideas in
Michael Oakeshott’s political thought. Be clear and specific. Focus only on the political thought
ideas of the thinker; no need to describe thinker’s life events. (5 marks)

B. As a student of Political Science and Political Thought, discuss the importance/implications of the
ideas of the political thinker (Popper OR Oakeshott) for analyzing contemporary political subjects
and issues. Provide relevant examples. NOTE: If you use information from published sources you
need to cite those sources. (5 marks)

A. _ British political theorist, philosopher, and educator whose work belongs to the philosophical tradition

of objective idealism. He is regarded as an important and singular conservative thinker. In political

theory Oakeshott is best known for his critique of modern rationalism. Human experience, according to

Oakeshott, is mediated by a certain number of human practices, such as politics or poetry. For

Oakeshott, reality and its experiencing cannot be separated in the way that empiricists, for instance,

separate sensation from its object. This, however, does not mean that our subjective experience

encompasses or even creates all of reality. Oakeshott’s philosophy is a form of objective idealism, which

argues, against materialism, that our experience of reality is mediated by thought while also rejecting the

notion that reality is solely subjective and thus relative (subjective idealism). _

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Oakeshott criticizes rationalism for reducing human practices such as politics to pragmatic enterprises

that can be analyzed, conveyed, and organized according to a rational model. From the rationalist’s

perspective, for instance, politics consists of designing institutions according to abstract principles,

without any regard for culture and tradition. By rejecting all authority besides reason, Oakeshotts argues,

rationalism loses sight of the practical knowledge that is embedded in these human practices.

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References

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Oakeshott