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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
SERIES EDITORS: DAVID F. HARDWICK · LESLIE MARSH

Oakeshott’s
Skepticism, Politics,
and Aesthetics
Edited by
Eric S. Kos
 Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism

Series Editors
David F. Hardwick
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Leslie Marsh
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada
This series offers a forum to writers concerned that the central presup-
positions of the liberal tradition have been severely corroded, neglected,
or misappropriated by overly rationalistic and constructivist approaches.
The hardest-won achievement of the liberal tradition has been the wres-
tling of epistemic independence from overwhelming concentrations of
power, monopolies and capricious zealotries. The very precondition of
knowledge is the exploitation of the epistemic virtues accorded by soci-
ety’s situated and distributed manifold of spontaneous orders, the DNA
of the modern civil condition.
With the confluence of interest in situated and distributed liberalism
emanating from the Scottish tradition, Austrian and behavioral econom-
ics, non-Cartesian philosophy and moral psychology, the editors are
soliciting proposals that speak to this multidisciplinary constituency. Sole
or joint authorship submissions are welcome as are edited collections,
broadly theoretical or topical in nature.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15722
 Eric S. Kos
Editor

Oakeshott’s
Skepticism, Politics,
and Aesthetics
Editor
Eric S. Kos
Department of Political Science
Siena Heights University
Adrian, MI, USA

ISSN 2662-6470     ISSN 2662-6489 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism
ISBN 978-3-030-83054-0    ISBN 978-3-030-83055-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83055-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgments

For their help and support in preparing this collection, I would like to
acknowledge Leslie Marsh, Shannon Kos, my editors at Palgrave
Macmillan, all of the authors of this volume, and Corey Abel for contin-
ued inspiration.

v
 Contents

Introduction  1
Eric S. Kos


Under the Law of Ruin: Practice, Aesthetics, and the Civil
Association 11
Eno Trimçev


Michael Oakeshott Philosopher of Skepticism: Conservative
or Liberal? 31
Agostino Carrino


Out of Rationalist Politics’ Crises: Popper and Oakeshott 51
Haosheng Li

 Conservative Landscape: From A Guide to the Classics

A
to the “Claims of Politics” 67
Carlos Marques de Almeida


The Art of the Scholar: Oakeshott’s Conservative Account
of Liberal Learning 77
Ferenc Hörcher

vii
viii Contents


The Understanding of Rationalism in C.S. Lewis and Michael
Oakeshott: Tradition, Experience, and the Reading of Old
Books 89
Luke C. Sheahan and Gene Callahan


Oakeshott, Strauss and the Romans111
Wendell John Coats


Authority: Fragments of the Good Regime127
Attila K. Molnár


‘That Spirit of Quiet’: Oakeshott, Keats and Sontag Towards
a Philosophy of Silence143
Alexander Langstaff


Oakeshott’s Theory of Poetry: A Corrective from
Seamus Heaney159
Kevin Williams


The Problem of a Pure Theory of Poetry175
James Alexander


What Can Contemporary Realists Learn from Montaigne?
On the Significance of the Author of the Essais
for Michael Oakeshott and Raymond Geuss197
Gülşen Seven

Index213
 Notes on Contributors

James Alexander is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political

Science at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey.
Gene Callahan is Industry Associate Professor at New York University.
Agostino Carrino is Professor of Public Law Institutions in the
Department of Law of the University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
Wendell John Coats is Professor of Government at Connecticut
College, New London, Connecticut.
Ferenc Hörcher is Research Professor, Research Institute for Politics
and Government, University of Public Service, and Senior Fellow,
Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest,
Hungary.
Eric S. Kos is Associate Professor of Political Science at Siena Heights
University, Adrian, Michigan, USA.
Alexander Langstaff is a Ph.D. Candidate in Modern European History
at New York University.
Haosheng Li is a Lecturer at the School of Politics and Public
Administration, Guangxi Normal University, China.

ix
x Notes on Contributors

Carlos Marques de Almeida is Professor of Political Theory in the

Institute for Political Studies and Associate Research Fellow at the
Institute for Political Studies Research Centre at Catholic University of
Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal.
Attila K. Molnár is Professor at the Thomas Molnar Institute for
Advanced Studies, National University of Public Service, Budapest,
Hungary.
Gülşen Seven is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political
Science and International Relations, TED University, Ankara, Turkey.
Luke C. Sheahan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duquesne
University and Non-Resident Scholar at the Program for Research on
Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania.
Eno Trimҫev, Ph.D. teaches and is Research Assistant, Institute for
Political Science and Communication Studies, University of Greifswald,
Greifswald, Germany.
Kevin Williams is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Evaluation,
Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, Institute of
Education, Dublin City University and Research Fellow at the Irish
Centre for Poetry Studies
 Introduction

Eric S. Kos

It has now been three decades since Oakeshott’s death and much has
changed. What has not changed is interest in Oakeshott or, more accu-
rately, growing interest in Oakeshott both in depth and breadth. This vol-
ume includes works from established scholars and newer arrivals.
Oakeshott’s cross-generational appeal can be attributed in part to the
combination of his accessible style and deeply informed insights. The col-
lection also continues the international flavor of scholarship on Oakeshott
with authors from across the globe and with a variety of backgrounds and
interests. The trend of both explicating Oakeshott’s thought and bringing
him into conversation with others has continued but expanded in new and
interesting ways. In this volume alone the list of characters spans quite the
range: there are some of the usual suspects (Strauss, Montaigne, Rousseau,
and Popper), but also C.S. Lewis, and poets (like Eliot and Seamus
Heaney), the theologian and mystic Evelyn Underhill and even the writer
and social activist Susan Sontag.

E. S. Kos (*)
Department of Political Science, Siena Heights University, Adrian, MI, USA
e-mail: ekos@sienaheights.edu

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
E. S. Kos (ed.), Oakeshott’s Skepticism, Politics, and Aesthetics,
Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83055-7_1
2 E. S. KOS

These essays also continue the analysis and use of materials previously
unavailable or not easily accessible, which include Oakeshott’s lectures,
notebooks, and manuscripts and comprise a multi-volume set of publica-
tions.1 These works make for a tricky set of sources for they at once pro-
vide a more accessible iteration of Oakeshott’s published thoughts, are an
entrée into works that interested Oakeshott, give some indication of when
he was initially exposed to various authors and works, are writings he
chose neither to publish nor to discard, and (as notes) don’t readily reveal
their meaning.
The themes of this collection come together in a creative and instruc-
tive way in Trimçev’s essay, “Under the Law of Ruin”. Drawing on
Oakeshott’s treatment of practical experience, viewed through Rousseau’s
anti-enlightenment diagnosis, the worst impulses of practical activity and
rationalism are shown to accelerate, culminating in the drive to accumu-
late and concentrate power in the state, undermining the conditions nec-
essary for civil association. Luckily, aesthetics and the cultivation of
authority provide some needed tonics, ones we are urged to more strongly
and deliberately attend.
Many essays draw heavily on Oakeshott’s distinction between technical
knowledge and practical knowledge, and more generally on the practical
lived experience of human beings as the necessary starting place, a point
Oakeshott comes back to and acknowledges as a touchpoint in his think-
ing. “It is a favourite theory of mine,” Oakeshott says, “that what people
call ‘ideals’ and ‘purposes’ are never themselves the source of human activ-
ity; they are shorthand expressions for the real spring of conduct, which is
a disposition to do certain things and a knowledge of how to do them.”2
This has implications for Oakeshott’s conservativism, skepticism, and
understanding of politics.
Carrino is drawn to the peculiarity of Oakeshott’s conservativism and
the difficulty of classifying him as either liberal or conservative. His inves-
tigation is a sustained attempt to move us away from asking the question
in the ideological manner in which it is posed and so, in myriad ways, he
turns our attention away from making familiar connections to religion, a
set of doctrines, ideological programs, and hierarchy towards Oakeshott’s
skepticism, deep historical sensibility, and prioritizing concrete practical
experience and knowledge and the dispositional conservativism that flows
from these. If history teaches us anything it teaches us about contingency:
that change and mortality are inextricable elements in human life. That
the things of the world, whether camping the mountains or the state, are
 INTRODUCTION 3

neither natural or necessary nor artificial in the sense of being deliberately

constructed; they are the product of accident and choice. Further, when
we enter the scene we do so as historical beings who must make sense of
the world for ourselves, for there is no ready way to unambiguously trans-
mit what others have made of the world. As such, not only must we seek
meaning for ourselves and our own place in the world, but ready answers
that promise to relieve us of contingency should make us wary, and we
should cultivate a disposition to enjoy what is present rather than seek
release in some future ideal. Even civil association and the modern free-
dom most compatible with it are contingent and worth conserving. What
this amounts to is a conservative, historical defense of individual liberty
and the political institutions that support it, a liberty and a regime neither
natural nor permanent.
The concern with rationalism, is shared by Li in his contrast of Oakeshott
and Karl Popper. Li sees two related problems (crises) with rationalism.
First, rationalism is perfectionism, or the belief in the power of reason to
imagine and articulate a universally desirable and realizable set of condi-
tions for human beings. Second, rationalism is the faith in a method to
reliably and rationally solve human problems. Both Oakeshott and Popper
are shown to successfully answer this rationalist claim to know “what to
do” both by uncovering the limits of human reason to achieve a univer-
sally agreeable ideal and the likelihood of violence both to people and to
the present of attempting to achieve some ideal. It is in response to the
rationalist’s faith in a method that Oakeshott and Popper part ways.
Popper doesn’t abandon rationalism altogether but, so to speak, ramps it
back. In order to relieve suffering in the world, he recommends a more
critical rationalism which he imagines can lead to a tolerable consensus for
smaller projects of social engineering (piecemeal engineering) through a
combination of rational-critical discussion and appeals to science.
Oakeshott’s response is much more skeptical, insisting the best we can do,
once we abandon the fantasy of demonstrably correct directions in poli-
tics, is to pursue intimations and to be related non-instrumentally in civil
association. The latter, to Li, addresses rationalism more thoroughly.
Method is the focus of Almeida’s essay on Oakeshott and Guy Griffith’s
book A Guide to the Derby. At first glance this appears to be an excursion
from the more serious engagement of theorizing Oakeshott’s skepticism,
politics, and aesthetics. In fact, however, it identifies the confluence of
these themes in his thought. Politics and the never-ending moral choices
we face in practical life generally, like horse-racing, are fraught with
4 E. S. KOS

contingency, despite our desire to have a surefire method or rule-of-thumb

to make our decisions easy. How do we possibly face this never-ending
stream of choices? First, we come to terms with uncertainty by recogniz-
ing we are making a wager on the future and, as such, come to recognize
our limited capacity to understand all of the variables, let alone to control
them. However, and second, this does not relieve us of the burden of
responding responsibly. If the world (especially the world of horse-racing)
is unpredictable, we should approach it “conservatively”: we should rely
on experience and common sense to first eliminate the obvious bad choices
and then, in the spirit of David Hume, rely on prudent probability (per-
haps in horse-racing allowing inspiration to tip the balance in one’s playful
gamble). The difficult translation, of course, is that political decisions can
have much higher stakes and one would wish the earnest outweighs the
playful in the political game.
The practical experience and knowledge proper to politics has affinities
to areas other than horseracing as Hörcher demonstrates vis-à-vis educa-
tion. As a counterpoint to the type of knowledge the rationalist imagines,
Hörcher shows how Oakeshott’s practical knowledge is on display in areas
as wide-ranging as science, religion, art, and cookery. Oakeshott merci-
fully eschewed the use of technical philosophical language, but a common
view of knowledge runs through Oakeshott’s work and is used to defend
a form of education from rationalism and other threats he saw on the hori-
zon. An important aspect of Oakeshott’s theory of knowledge Hörcher
points out is the distinction between technical and practical knowledge
and the value of the latter. Practical knowledge is acquired in performance
and observing notable performance; it is the knowledge that reveals itself
in good judgment, in a sensibility or connoisseurship, that may border on
the transcendent and spiritual elements of a practice. We reference this
knowledge when we move beyond the technical proficiency of say a flutist
to their musicality or the feeling they are able to transmit through their
performance. This can be taught but not in a pamphlet outlining ten easy
steps, or a correspondence course. Instead, Hörcher points out, this can
only be done in community; in the case of the university, in a community
of teachers and learners who live together and engage in the practices of
learning and teaching, and in doing so preserve this civilized set of
institutions.
Practical experience, as a contrast to the rationalist’s understanding of
knowledge, is at the heart of the comparison between Oakeshott and
C.S. Lewis in Sheahan and Callahan’s essay. Despite their professional and
 INTRODUCTION 5

intellectual differences, Oakeshott and Lewis both believed tradition and

experience were a better guide to conduct than abstract theorizing.
Sheahan and Callahan find in Lewis’ distinction between “looking at” and
“looking through” some strong resemblances to Oakeshott’s claim that
experience precedes theory and, through Oakeshott’s critical reading of
Plato’s cave allegory, an appreciation of the knowledge acquired through
practical experience. Both thinkers also see the insufficiency of the ratio-
nalist’s faith in abstract reason, and both emphasize the importance of
properly cultivated desires, for without these as springs of action, the
rationalist unintentionally perhaps puts untrained desires in the driver’s
seat. The two thinkers do however seem to see a different source for this
unleashing of desire. For Oakeshott, it derives from a rejection by the
rationalist of the customary knowledge of how to act. For Lewis, it results
from moral tenets/ideals being unmoored from the tradition(s) that pro-
vide their justification. This common critique of the rationalist’s faith in
abstract reason in place of the habits of affection and training of moral
sentiments, moves the two thinkers to similar thoughts on education:
both criticize the mere training in technique the rationalist resorts to,
and favor immersion in and the exploration of one’s tradition. The empha-
sis on technical knowledge combined with the optimism (hubris?) of the
rationalist to remake society, has both thinkers horrified at not only the
rationalist’s capacity to destroy “everything which makes life worth living”
(one of Lewis’ characters is made to say in his novel That Hideous Strength)
but also to attempt to transform human beings into something unrecog-
nizable. Oakeshott and Lewis also share other interesting similarities in
their intellectual influences, their turn of phrase, and politically (not in
political programs, but in their skeptical and classical liberalism).
Coats’ essay contributes to our understanding of politics at number of
levels. First, it helps us solve what he (and others) have seen as the puz-
zling, differential attention Oakeshott and Strauss paid to ancient Roman
political thinking, a difference all the more striking given the thesis (well
known to Strauss and Oakeshott) of Harvard Professor of history and
government Charles McIlwain, that constitutionalism had ancient Roman
and English roots. What Coats, with elegant efficiency, shows is how the
different treatments of Strauss and Oakeshott are connected to their
respective set of concerns: in Strauss’ case, his particular diagnosis of
“modernity”; in Oakeshott’s, the nascent historical formulations of what
Oakeshott articulated as teleocratic and nomocratic political rule. Second,
Coats allows us to see more clearly what one might call the politics of
6 E. S. KOS

political philosophy; that is, what is at stake in not just ignoring Roman
political thinking or determining the start of “modernity”, but also and
more broadly in how to characterize the political tradition/inheritance as
it comes to us (A quarrel between Ancients and Moderns? A
conversation?).
Molnar too is interested in nomocratic rule and civil association, and
analyzes these through the lens of the conservative’s concern about order
and authority. Molnar shows how Oakeshott reimagines what had been a
central element in the Good Regime (authority) under modern condi-
tions. Instead of abandoning the belief that authority has its roots in the
beliefs of subjects, in the ethical life of a people, Oakeshott’s attention is
shown to shift from origins of authority to the character of authority itself
in a world of free, imperfect, less than transparent, individuals and the
inevitable conflicts they are likely to encounter. In place of a natural com-
munity or a contractual community, the recognition of authority to make
law is shown to be the binding glue (internally binding instead of the
coercive use of force) of a community that is most compatible with mod-
ern individualism (the current ethical life of at least some, modern peo-
ples today).
One issue in the scholarship that Molnar’s essay raises regards the rela-
tionship of Oakeshott’s early work to his later work, and the now estab-
lished disagreement over whether Oakeshott shifted position from a more
Hegelian one to a more skeptical one, or whether the shift in Oakeshott’s
language from Experience and Its Modes to his essay “On the Voice of
Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind” signals a mere shift of emphasis.
It is useful to note the very different purposes Oakeshott indicates for
writing these two works. Oakeshott writes in Experience and Its Modes that
philosophical experience takes hold when natural human curiosity is pur-
sued deliberately and without distraction or hesitation regardless of where
it might lead. It is “experience without presupposition, reservation, arrest
or modification” . . . “experience which is critical throughout, unhindered
and undistracted by what is subsidiary, partial or abstract.” A philosopher
is “simply the victim of thought”, who doesn’t cease seeking “what is
finally satisfactory in experience.” It is the “purpose of this book,”
Oakeshott says, “to discover the main implications of this concept of phi-
losophy.”3 The aim is philosophical and explanatory. It is to explore this
view of philosophy in the face of the putative alternative explanatory
methods or modes that is the object of this work. And, of course, the
 INTRODUCTION 7

argument is that alternative modes of explanation of the totality of experi-

ence fall short of completeness or are “abstract”.
In the preface to Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays Oakeshott
connects the essay “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind”
to Experience and Its Modes indicating the “essay on poetry is a belated
retraction of a foolish sentence in Experience and Its Modes.”4 The “foolish
sentence” is presumably the reference to “art, music and poetry” and what
they can offer. “For in these,” Oakeshott says, “in the end, we are wholly
taken up with practical life.” This is followed up with a footnote quoting
Rilke that “Art is childhood” in the sense that the world is one of “endless
possibilities and wishes.”5 Despite this direct connection and perhaps the
suggestion that he simply left out the “poetic mode” or assimilated it to
the practical mode, Oakeshott has set himself a different task in this essay.
First, Oakeshott indicates that he is not investigating “explanatory
modes” but more generally is interested in “human utterance” and in the
variety of “modes of speaking” that have emerged historically. He even
shifts from using modes to speaking of “idioms”; modes of expression
instead of modes of explanation.6 Second, he is interested in exploring the
relationship of these idioms or “voices”, in part to reinvigorate the conver-
sation, which has become boring in the face of the incessant preoccupa-
tion with scientific and practical utterance.7 This suggests a third concern:
to articulate a clear vision of poetic utterance and poetic imagining to
establish its separate status from either the scientific or the practical.
Langstaff draws out these latter concerns of Oakeshott by referencing
moments in Oakeshott’s oeuvre where he highlighted the importance of
silence and how they are necessary to the creation and reception of art,
particularly in the busy, noisy, contemporary world. Oakeshott’s evocating
of Keats’ negative capacity and the contemplative receptivity it implies,
especially in the face of temporality, is contrasted to the impatience of the
rationalist. The openness of conversation that is characteristic of the inter-
val we spend in college or university is equally characteristic of the suspen-
sion of judgment, the racial openness, and the patient silence necessary to
all conversation and learning. Langstaff points to Oakeshott’s early inter-
est and approving reference to Evelyn Underhill on this score and draws
on Susan Sontag’s “soft” silence to illuminate how the use of silence, for
instance in the avante-garde art of John Cage, can point to new under-
standings unveiled by an aesthetic silence.
Langstaff sees poetry in the widest sense Oakeshott has suggested it in
“The Voice of Poetry” essay (as does Seven)—as a viewpoint or way of
8 E. S. KOS

imagining or way of responding to the whole. The Williams and Alexander

essays explore and critique the austerity of Oakeshott’s view of poetry.
Williams’ essay brings the poetry and analysis of Seamus Heaney to the
table to point out the limits of Oakeshott’s formal aesthetic theory and to
show what Williams sees as a more nuanced view Oakeshott has of poetry
and of literature in particular. After clearly showing how Oakeshott distin-
guishes the voice of poetry from both practical considerations and truth
seeking, Williams establishes how central the moral and political context is
to Heaney’s poetry and uses this to show not only how Heaney agrees
with Oakeshott that poetry should be delightful and pleasant but to also
insist poetry needs to be wise. If poetry needs to be wise, Williams rightly
insists context is important both as the source and the object of the poet
and the audience. Here the reader’s attention is drawn to Oakeshott’s
writings on education where Oakeshott clearly sees literature as one ave-
nue for practical lessons and insights about the world, indicating for
Williams a more subtle theory Oakeshott is advancing alongside his formal
theory of poetry. The essay concludes by making two related points. First,
drawing on the criticism of Bakhurst and Misak of Oakeshott’s conversa-
tion metaphor, Oakeshott’s skeptical and aesthetic views of conversation
are said to give way to a subtle embrace of plural or modal truths. Secondly,
and presumably drawing on the plural nature of truth, poetry is advanced
as an avenue to uncover hidden aspects of reality; that poetry always has a
message without it being a poem’s business to deliver a message; that
poetry contains truths but truths arrived at circuitously.
Alexander’s essay is at once a critical examination of Oakeshott’s under-
standing of “poetry” and a far-reaching elucidation and analysis of the
history of poetry and Oakeshott’s place within it. In this analysis he shows
how Oakeshott’s rather severe view of the character of poetry not only
ignores how poetry has been understood as a vehicle for truth and under-
standing (often of a hidden reality) and as a source of teaching and plea-
sure, but also makes the common sense understanding and appreciation of
poetry virtually unrecognizable. He raises the critical question, beyond
attempting to “keep politics in its place”, what Oakeshott’s wider aims
were, both in choosing to use the term poetry to stand in for a wider view
of art in its many forms, but also (unlike his theory of politics) in the aus-
terity of the theory itself.
I am not aware of any place where Oakeshott indicated why he chose to
use the poetry/poetic instead of art/artistic, though the standard mean-
ing of the former Oakeshott admits is too narrow for what he intends.
 INTRODUCTION 9

One possibility is the latter as an adjective puts more emphasis on the

production of the image and less emphasis on the quality of the image
itself. And, having an image evoke a poetic (contemplative) response,
would be different than having an artistic (an urge to be creative oneself?)
response.
The wider sense in which Oakeshott meant the poetic is captured in
Seven’s essay on Montaigne. Montaigne is appreciated by philosophical
realists, like Oakeshott and Raymond Geuss, according to Seven, because
he sees the human condition as it really is. And, the reality is that human
beings are limited creatures and so are apt to find different meanings in
what they are doing without any ready way of reconciling those differ-
ences. That is, what realists seem to admire in Montaigne is his skeptical
outlook. Noteworthy as this is, however, what is more impressive to
Oakeshott and Geuss, is Montaigne’s graceful response to human limita-
tion and the differences that necessarily emerge. Seven has done us the
service of noting just where Montaigne is invoked in Oakeshott’s writings
in particular, and one important point is in the essay on poetry where
Oakeshott lays out the plurality of voices and their playful interaction in
conversation. Montaigne not only embraced this rather skeptical picture
of human activity but considered this conversation the greatest “accom-
plishments of mankind”.8 Oakeshott and Geuss are concerned about phi-
losophers and others who don’t appreciate the conversation and wish to
transform it by imposing a more uniform character upon it. Montaigne’s
response is to intrepidly explore this conversation, starting with the con-
versation within himself, and to delight in this contemplative activity (a
poetic response). Introspection freed Montaigne from simply following
others and resulted in him becoming an “accidental philosopher”—a char-
acter Geuss admires as he views a world of standardized philosophers.
Oakeshott sees in Montaigne the emblem of the modern individual, not in
the sense of maximizing his agency, but in exploring the conversation and
making of it what he will, in exercising his capacity as a reflective intelli-
gence, and, then, in enacting himself in the world according to that self-­
understanding; acting authentically; belonging to himself.
The image of voices in conversation is a rather skeptical picture of our
inheritance. To return to experience more generally: experience is a whole,
Oakeshott says,9 in which what we experience is a cacophony of incoming
stimuli that provokes us and has meaning for us in very different ways. As
human beings we have developed a variety of interpretive practices, path-
ways, or ways of seeing and responding to our experience. Some of these
10 E. S. KOS

pathways have established stronger currents in our stream of experience.

What experience is, then, is a world replete with meaning; a rich plurality
of ways of thinking/experiencing the world without any clear indication
that one particular avenue has a priority, either sequentially or hierarchi-
cally. Oakeshott wants us to ask what the appropriate response is to this
inheritance. Should we immediately set about the task of gleaning the les-
sons for success or accumulating the knowledge as our legacy? Or is it the
more poetic response of delighting in the conversation itself and following
Montaigne as an intrepid adventurer to find the treasures that are uniquely
our own?

Notes
1. Luke O’Sullivan has admirably edited and published six volumes to date
starting with What is History? And Other Essays, (Exeter: Imprint Academic,
2004). For a full listing, http://books.imprint.co.uk/author/?
Person_ID=387
2. Michael Oakeshott, “The Idea of a University,” in The Voice of Liberal
Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education, ed. Timothy Fuller (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1989), 95.
3. Michael Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1933), 2–3.
4. Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, new and
expanded edition, ed. Timothy Fuller (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund,
1991), xi.
5. Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes, 297 and 297n1.
6. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 488–89.
7. Ibid., 493.
8. Ibid., 491.
9. Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes, 9–11.
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Preliminary
report on a visit to the Navaho National
Monument, Arizona
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Title: Preliminary report on a visit to the Navaho National Monument,

Arizona

Author: Jesse Walter Fewkes

Release date: December 29, 2023 [eBook #72541]

Language: English

Credits: Bob Taylor, Carlo Traverso and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

PRELIMINARY REPORT ON A VISIT TO THE NAVAHO NATIONAL
MONUMENT, ARIZONA ***
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 50 PLATE 1

KITSIEL
 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
BULLETIN 50

PRELIMINARY REPORT ON A VISIT TO THE

NAVAHO NATIONAL MONUMENT
ARIZONA

BY

JESSE WALTER FEWKES

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1911
 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Smithsonian Institution,
Bureau of American Ethnology,
Washington, D. C., March 16, 1910.
Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith, for publication, with your
approval, as Bulletin 50 of this Bureau, the manuscript of a paper by
Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes, entitled “Preliminary Report on a Visit to
the Navaho National Monument, Arizona.”
Yours, respectfully,
F. W. Hodge,
Ethnologist in Charge.
Dr. Charles D. Walcott,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D. C.
 CONTENTS

Page
Introduction 1
Routes to the Navaho National Monument 6
Route from Flagstaff to Marsh pass 6
Major antiquities 10
Ruin A 10
Cliff-house B 10
Swallows Nest 12
Betatakin 12
Kitsiel (Keet Seel) 16
Scaffold House 18
Cradle House 20
Ladder House 20
Forest-glen House 21
Pine-tree House 21
Trickling-spring House 21
Characteristic features of ruins 22
Minor antiquities 26
Pottery 27
Cliff-dwellers cradle 29
Miscellaneous objects 30
Summary and conclusions 30
Recommendations
35
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate 1. Kitsiel Frontispiece

2. Inscription House 1
3. Wukóki ruin at Black Falls 2
4. Ruin A, southwest of Marsh pass 4
5. Ruin B, at Marsh pass 7
6. View into Laguna canyon from Marsh pass 9
7. Swallows Nest 10
8. Betatakin—general view 13
9. Betatakin—western end 14
10. Ground plan of Betatakin 14
11. Betatakin—central part 17
12. Pictographs at Betatakin 18
13. Ground plan of Kitsiel (Keet Seel) ruin 21
14. Diagrams showing kiva roof construction 23
15. Pottery from Navaho National Monument 24
16. Pottery from Navaho National Monument 26
Pottery and stone implements from Navaho
17. 28
National Monument
18. Pottery from Navaho National Monument 30
19. Cliff-dwellers cradle—front 32
20. Cliff-dwellers cradle—rear 32
21. Cliff-dwellers cradle—side 32
22. Sketch map of the Navaho National Monument 34
Figure 1. Scaffold of Scaffold House 18
2. Ground plan of Trickling-spring House 22
3. Design on cliff-dwellers cradle 29

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 50 PLATE 2

INSCRIPTION HOUSE
(From a photograph by William B. Douglass.)
 PRELIMINARY REPORT ON A VISIT TO THE NAVAHO
NATIONAL MONUMENT, ARIZONA

By Jesse Walter Fewkes

INTRODUCTION

On the completion of the work of excavation and repair of Cliff

Palace, in the Mesa Verde National Park, in southern Colorado, in
charge of the writer, under the Secretary of the Interior, he was
instructed by Mr. W. H. Holmes, then Chief of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, to make an archeologic reconnaissance of the
northern part of Arizona, where a tract of land containing important
prehistoric ruins had been reserved by the President under the name
Navaho National Monument. In the following pages are considered
some of the results of that trip, a more detailed account of the ruins
being deferred to a future report, after a more extended examination
shall have been made.[1] Mention is made of a few objects collected,
and recommendations are submitted for future excavation and repair
work on these remarkable ruins to preserve them for examination by
students and tourists. As will appear later, a scientific study of them
is important, for they are connected with Hopi pueblos still inhabited,
in which are preserved traditions concerning the ruins and their
ancient inhabitants.
The present population of Walpi, a Hopi pueblo, is made up of
descendants of various clans, whose ancestors once lived in distant
villages, now ruins, situated in various directions from its site on the
East mesa. One of the problems before the student of the Pueblos is
to locate accurately the ancestral villages where these clans lived in
prehistoric times. From an examination of the architecture of these
villages and a study of the character of secular and cult objects
found in them, the culture of the clans that inhabited these dwellings
could be roughly determined. The culture at any epoch in the history
of the clan being known, data are available that may make possible
comparison and correlation with that which is still more ancient: in
other words, that may add a chapter to our knowledge of the
migrations of the Hopi Indians in prehistoric times.
The writer has already identified some of the ancient houses of
those Hopi clans that claim to have dwelt formerly south of Walpi, on
the Little Colorado near Winslow, but has not investigated the ruins
to the north, in which once lived the Snake, Horn, and Flute clans.
An investigation of the origin and migrations of this contingent is
instructive because it is claimed that these clans were among the
first to arrive at Walpi, or that they united with the previously existing
Bear clan, forming the nucleus of the population of that pueblo.
A preliminary step in the investigation of the culture of the clans
that played a most important part in founding Walpi and giving rise to
the Hopi people would be the identification of the houses (now ruins)
of the Snake, Horn, and Flute clans, the existence of which in the
region north of Walpi is known with a greater or less degree of
certainty from Hopi legends. An archeologic study of these ruins and
of cult objects found in them would reveal some of the prehistoric
features of the culture of the ancient Snake clans. “The ancient
home of my ancestors,” said the old Snake chief to the writer, “was
called Tokónabi,[2] which is situated not far from Navaho mountain. If
you go there, you will find ruins of their former houses.” In previous
years the writer had often looked with longing eyes to the mountains
that formed the Hopi horizon on the north where these mysterious
homes of the Snake and Flute clans were said to be situated, but
had never been able to explore them. In 1909 the opportunity came
to visit this region, and while some of the ruins found may not be
identifiable with Tokónabi, they were abodes of people almost
identical in culture with the ancient Snake, Horn, and Flute clans of
the Hopi.
References to the northern ruins occur frequently in Hopi legends
of the Snake and Flute clans, and even accounts of the great natural
bridges lately seen for the first time by white people were given
years ago by Hopi familiar with legends of these families. The writer
heard the Hopi tell of their former homes among the “high rocks” in
the north and at Navaho mountain, fifteen years ago, at which time
they offered to guide him to them. The stories of the great cave ruins
to the north were heard even earlier from the lips of the Hopi priests
by another observer. Mr. A. M. Stephen, the pioneer in Hopi studies,
informed the writer that he had learned of great ruins in the north as
far back as 1885, and Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff, aided by Mr. Stephen,
published the names of the clans which, according to the Hopi,
inhabited them.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 50 PLATE 3

a. from the south

 b. from the north
WUKÓKI RUIN AT BLACK FALLS

Victor Mindeleff[3] summarizes the Hopi traditions concerning

Tokónabi still preserved by the Horn and Flute clans of Walpi:
The Horn people, to which the Lenbaki [Flute] belonged, have a
legend of coming from a mountain range in the east.
Its peaks were always snow covered, and the trees were always
green. From the hillside the plains were seen, over which roamed the
deer, the antelope, and the bison, feeding on never-failing grasses.
[Possibly the Horn people were so called from an ancient home where
horned animals abounded.] Twining through these plains were
streams of bright water, beautiful to look upon. A place where none
but those who were of our people ever gained access.
This description suggests some region of the headwaters of the Rio
Grande. Like the Snake people, they tell of a protracted migration, not
 of continuous travel, for they remained for many seasons in one place,
where they would plant and build permanent houses. One of these
halting places is described as a canyon with high, steep walls, in
which was a flowing stream; this, it is said, was the Tségi (the Navajo
name for Canyon de Chelly).[4] Here they built a large house in a
cavernous recess, high up in the canyon wall. They tell of devoting
two years to ladder making and cutting and pecking shallow holes up
the steep rocky side by which to mount to the cavern, and three years
more were employed in building the house....
The legend goes on to tell that after they had lived there for a long
time a stranger happened to stray in their vicinity, who proved to be a
Hopituh [Hopi], and said that he lived in the south. After some stay he
left and was accompanied by a party of the “Horn” [clan], who were to
visit the land occupied by their kindred Hopituh and return with an
account of them; but they never came back. After waiting a long time
another band was sent, who returned and said that the first emissaries
had found wives and had built houses on the brink of a beautiful
canyon, not far from the other Hopituh dwellings. After this many of
the Horns grew dissatisfied with their cavern home, dissensions
arose, they left their home and finally they reached Tusayan.

The early legends of the Snake clans tell how bags containing
their ancestors were dropped from a rainbow in the neighborhood of
Navaho mountain. They recount how they built a pentagonal home
and how one of their young men married a Snake girl who gave birth
to reptiles, which bit the children and compelled the people to
migrate. They left their canyon homes and went southward, building
houses at the stopping-places all the way from Navaho mountain to
Walpi. Some of these houses, probably referring to their kivas and
kihus, legends declare, were round[5] and others square.
Some of the ruins here mentioned have been known to white men
for many years. There is evidence that they have been repeatedly
visited by soldiers, prospectors, and relic hunters. The earliest white
visitor of whom there is any record was Lieutenant Bell, of the 2d (?)
Infantry, U. S. A.,[6] whose name, with the date 1859, is still to be
seen cut on a stone in a wall of ruin A.
A few years ago information was obtained from Navaho by
Richard and John Wetherill of the existence of some of the large cliff-
houses on Laguna creek and its branches; the latter has guided
several parties to them. Among other visitors in 1909 may be
mentioned Dr. Edgar L. Hewett, director of the School of American
Archæology of the Archæological Institute of America. A party[7] from
the University of Utah, under direction of Prof. Byron Cummings, has
dug extensively in the ruins and obtained a considerable collection.
The sites of several ruins in the Navaho National Monument,[8]
which was created on his recommendation, have been indicated by
Mr. William B. Douglass, United States Examiner of Surveys,
General Land Office, on a map accompanying the President’s
proclamation, and also on a recent map issued by the General Land
Office. Although his report has not yet been published, he has
collected considerable data, including photographs of Betatakin,
Kitsiel (Keetseel), and the ruin called Inscription House, situated in
the Nitsi (Neetsee) canyon. While Mr. Douglass does not claim to be
the discoverer of these ruins, credit is due him for directing the
attention of the Interior Department to the antiquities of this region
and the desirability of preserving them.
The two ruins[9] in Nitsi (Neetsee),[10] West canyon, are not yet
included in the Navaho Monument, but according to Mr. Douglass
these are large ones, being 300 and 350 feet long, respectively,[11]
and promise a rich field for investigation. That these ruins will yield
large collections is indicated by the fact that the several specimens
of minor antiquities in a collection presented to the Smithsonian
Institution by Mr. Janus, the best of which are here figured (pls. 15-
18), came from this neighborhood, possibly from one of these ruins.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 50 PLATE 4

a. interior
 b. exterior
RUIN A, SOUTHWEST OF MARSH PASS

The ruins in West canyon (pl. 2) are particularly interesting from

the fact that the walls of some of the rooms are built of elongated
cylinders of clay shaped like a Vienna loaf of bread. These “bricks”
consist of a bundle of twigs enveloped in red clay, which forms a
superficial covering, the “brick” being flattened on two faces. These
unusual adobes were laid like bricks, and so tenaciously were they
held together by clay mortar that in one instance the corner of a
room, on account of undermining, had fallen as a single mass. The
use of straw-strengthened adobe blocks is unknown in the
construction of other cliff-houses, although the author’s
investigations at Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park revealed
the use of cubical clay blocks not having the central core of twigs or
sticks, and true adobes are found in the Chelly canyon and at
Awatobi. The ruins in West canyon can be visited from either
Bekishibito or Shanto, the approach from both of these places being
not difficult. There is good drinking water in West canyon, where may
be found also small areas of pasturage owned by a few Navaho who
inhabit this region. The trail by which one descends from the rim of
West canyon to the valley is steep and difficult.
One of the most interesting discoveries in West canyon is the
grove of peach trees in the valley a short distance from the canyon
wall. The existence of these trees indicates Spanish influence.
Peach trees were introduced into the Hopi country and the Canyon
de Chelly in historic times either by Spanish priests or by refugees
from the Rio Grande pueblos. They were observed in the Chelly
canyon by Simpson in 1850.
The geographical position of these ruins in relation to Navaho
mountain[12] leads the writer to believe that they might have been
built by the Snake clans in their migration south and west from
Tokónabi to Wukóki, but he has not yet been able to identify them by
Hopi traditions.
But little has appeared in print on the ruins near Marsh pass. In
former times an old government road, now seldom used, ran through
Marsh pass, and those who traveled over it had a good view of some
of these ruins. Situated far from civilization, this region has attracted
but slight attention, although it is one of the most important,
archeologically speaking, in our Southwest. Much of this part of
Arizona is covered with ruins, some of which, as “Tecolote,”[13] are
indicated on the United States Engineers’ map of 1877. In his
excellent article[14] on this region Dr. T. Mitchell Prudden gives us no
description of the interesting cliff-dwellings in or near Marsh pass,
though he writes of the ruins in the neighboring canyon: “There are
numerous small valley sites, several cliff houses, and a few
pictographs in the canyon of the Towanache,[15] which enters Marsh
pass from the northwest.” As indicated on his map, Doctor Prudden’s
route did not pass the large ruins west and south of this canyon or
those on the road to Red Lake and Tuba.
Manifestly, the purpose of a national monument is the preservation
of important objects contained therein, and a primary object of
archeological work should be to attract to it as many visitors and
students as possible. As the country in which the Navaho National
Monument is situated is one of the least known parts of Arizona, first