Download or read book A Political Philosophy of Conservatism written by Ferenc Hörcher and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing prudence back into the centre of political philosophical discussion, this book assesses how far the Aristotelian notion can be of use in thinking about politics today. Antique, medieval and early modern discussions on practical wisdom are reconstructed and re-contextualised to show not only how our understanding of the virtue of 'prudence' has changed over time, but why it should be revived. Starting with basic Aristotelian principles, such as the relevance of cooperation and politics in human life, the significance of the virtues and character-formation for political actors, and the personal and communal resources of right action in politics, Ferenc Hörcher offers an evolutionary history of the concept of prudence. Moving on to incorporate the developments of the Roman and the Christian traditions, a contemporary conservative-republican political philosophy is built up. Special attention is given to the relevance of local customs and traditions as well as participation, compromise and moderation in political activity. The book demonstrates that Aristotelian notions should be used to describe the actions and speeches of people active in politics, without losing sight of the normative dimension. In doing so, it presents an original argument which is both different from mainstream contemporary political philosophy and beneficial to our understanding of the role of practical reason in politics.
Download or read book A Political Philosophy written by Roger Scruton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-10-03 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past twenty years, Roger Scruton has been developing a conservative view of human beings, society and culture. The tone of this book is positive and the arguments are recommendations with the aim of convincing the reader that rumours of the death of Western civilisation are greatly exaggerated. Much of our present self doubt, argues Scruton, is brought about by the Darwinian theory of evolution. Darwin encourages us to see human emotion as a reproductive strategy. This is a perspective which Scruton attacks vehemently especially in its modern proponents- Desmond Morris and Richard Dawkins. This the author believes undermines the belief in freedom and the moral imperatives that stem from it.
Download or read book The Conservative Sensibility written by George F. Will and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist's "astonishing" and "enthralling" New York Times bestseller and Notable Book about how the Founders' belief in natural rights created a great American political tradition (Booklist) -- "easily one of the best books on American Conservatism ever written" (Jonah Goldberg). For more than four decades, George F. Will has attempted to discern the principles of the Western political tradition and apply them to America's civic life. Today, the stakes could hardly be higher. Vital questions about the nature of man, of rights, of equality, of majority rule are bubbling just beneath the surface of daily events in America. The Founders' vision, articulated first in the Declaration of Independence and carried out in the Constitution, gave the new republic a framework for government unique in world history. Their beliefs in natural rights, limited government, religious freedom, and in human virtue and dignity ushered in two centuries of American prosperity. Now, as Will shows, conservatism is under threat -- both from progressives and elements inside the Republican Party. America has become an administrative state, while destructive trends have overtaken family life and higher education. Semi-autonomous executive agencies wield essentially unaccountable power. Congress has failed in its duty to exercise its legislative powers. And the executive branch has slipped the Constitution's leash. In the intellectual battle between the vision of Founding Fathers like James Madison, who advanced the notion of natural rights that pre-exist government, and the progressivism advanced by Woodrow Wilson, the Founders have been losing. It's time to reverse America's political fortunes. Expansive, intellectually thrilling, and written with the erudite wit that has made Will beloved by millions of readers, The Conservative Sensibility is an extraordinary new book from one of America's most celebrated political writers.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Roger Scruton and published by All Points Books. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “...one of the most eloquent and even moving evocations of the conservative tradition in Western politics, philosophy and culture I have ever read...the ideal primer for those who are new to conservative ideas...” —Richard Aldous, Wall Street Journal A brief magisterial introduction to the conservative tradition by one of Britain’s leading intellectuals. In Conservatism, Roger Scruton offers the reader an invitation into the world of political philosophy by explaining the history and evolution of the conservative movement over the centuries. With the clarity and authority of a gifted teacher, he discusses the ideology's perspective on civil society, the rule of law, freedom, morality, property, rights, and the role of the state. In a time when many claim that conservatives lack a unified intellectual belief system, this book makes a very strong case to the contrary, one that politically-minded readers will find compelling and refreshing. Scruton analyzes the origins and development of conservatism through the philosophies and thoughts of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, among others. He shows how conservative ideas have influenced the political sector through the careers of a diverse cast of politicians, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Disraeli, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. He also takes a close look at the changing relationship between conservative politics, capitalism, and free markets in both the UK and the US. This clear, incisive guide is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Western politics and policies, now and over the last three centuries.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Kieron O’Hara and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2011-06-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term "conservative," when employed today in reference to politicians and beliefs, can denote groups as diverse and incompatible as the religious right, libertarians, and opponents of large, centralized government. Yet the original conservative philosophy, first developed in the eighteenth century by Edmund Burke, was most concerned with managing change. This kind of genuine conservatism has a renewed relevance in a complex world where change is rapid, pervasive, and dislocating. In Conservatism, Kieron O’Hara presents a thought-provoking revision of the traditional conservative philosophy, here crafted for the modern age. As O’Hara argues, conservatism transcends traditional politics and has surprising applications—not least as the most appropriate and practical response to climate change. He shows what a properly conservative ideology looks like today, and draws on such great conservative thinkers as Burke and Adam Smith, philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein, and contemporary social commentators such as Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ulrich Beck, and Jared Diamond, in order to outline how conservative philosophy lays bare our failure to understand our own society. O’Hara proves as well that conservatism is distinct from neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, and the extreme positions of many of today’s most outspoken commentators. In this comprehensive and detailed description of a philosophy of change and innovation, O’Hara shows how conservatism can be an ideology sensitive to cultural differences among the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. As well, he highlights key issues of technology, trust, and privacy. Conservatism is a provocative read and a level-headed guide to cutting through the many voices of policy makers and pundits claiming to represent conservative points of view.
Download or read book Defining Conservatism written by Jonathan Krohn and published by Vanguard. This book was released on 2010-02-09 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dedicated young Conservative, Jonathan Krohn presents Conservative philosophy's basic tenets in this remarkably earnest and impeccably reasoned primer. This book, clear and informative, is a history lesson, a manifesto, and a roadmap for the future. Anyone interested in the basic differences between Conservative and Liberal thought will find Krohn's writing at once compelling, informative, intelligent, and--for those who do not agree with him--in some respects controversial.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Jerry Z. Muller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1997-05-04 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History Professor Jerry Muller locates the origins of modern conservatism within the Enlightenment and distinguishes conservatism from orthodoxy. Reviewing important specimens of analysis from the mid18th century through our own day, Muller demonstrates that characteristic features of conservative argument recur over time and across national borders.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Edmund Neill and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservatism is often labelled as a ‘disposition’, ‘tradition’, or even a set of knee-jerk reactions, rather than an ideology, and its suspicion of grand theorising has lent itself to this characterization. In this book, leading political theorist Edmund Neill challenges this view. He argues that conservatism is better identified as an ideology, albeit one that, rather than putting forward positive values like ‘liberty’ or ‘equality’, conceptualizes human conduct as being partially dependent on forces beyond human volition, and prioritizes the cautious management of change. He charts the evolution of conservative thought from the French Revolution to the present, examining how conservatives responded to disruptions to traditional order across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on examples from Britain, France and the United States, Neill concludes with some reflections on the challenges (and opportunities) that contemporary populism presents for conservatism. This accomplished overview is essential reading for any student or scholar working in political theory and political philosophy, especially those with a particular interest in ideologies and conservatism.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Yoram Hazony and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that American conservatism is identical to "classical" liberalism—widely held since the 1960s—is seriously mistaken. The award-winning political theorist Yoram Hazony argues that the best hope for Western democracy is a return to the empiricist, religious, and nationalist traditions of America and Britain—the conservative traditions that brought greatness to the English-speaking nations and became the model for national freedom for the entire world. Conservatism: A Rediscovery explains how Anglo-American conservatism became a distinctive alternative to divine-right monarchy, Puritan theocracy, and liberal revolution. After tracing the tradition from the Wars of the Roses to Burke and across the Atlantic to the American Federalists and Lincoln, Hazony describes the rise and fall of Enlightenment liberalism after World War II and the present-day debates between neoconservatives and national conservatives over how to respond to liberalism and the woke left. Going where no political thinker has gone in decades, Hazony provides a fresh theoretical foundation for conservatism. Rejecting the liberalism of Hayek, Strauss, and the "fusionists" of the 1960s, and drawing on decades of personal experience in the conservative movement, he argues that a revival of authentic Anglo-American conservatism is possible in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Edmund Fawcett and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Conservatism focuses on an exemplary core of France, Britain, Germany and the United States. It describes the parties, politicians and thinkers of the right, bringing out strengths and weaknesses in conservative thought"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Ted Honderich and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is arguable that conservatives' adversaries have seldom found their way to a true understanding of the politics first elaborated by Edmund Burke; and that conservatives, for their part, have refused to reduce their politics to a principle. Here the author examines the principles and realities.
Download or read book The Reactionary Mind written by Corey Robin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now updated to include Trump's election and the rise of global populism, Corey Robin's 'The Reactionary Mind' traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution.
Download or read book Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism 1830 1914 written by Emily Jones and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1830 and 1914 in Britain a dramatic modification of the reputation of Edmund Burke (1730-1797) occurred. Burke, an Irishman and Whig politician, is now most commonly known as the "founder of modern conservatism" - an intellectual tradition which is also deeply connected to the identity of the British Conservative Party. The idea of "Burkean conservatism"--a political philosophy which upholds "the authority of tradition," the organic, historic conception of society, and the necessity of order, religion, and property--has been incredibly influential both in international academic analysis and in the wider political world. This is a highly significant intellectual construct, but its origins have not yet been understood. This volume demonstrates, for the first time, that the transformation of Burke into the "founder of conservatism" was in fact part of wider developments in British political, intellectual, and cultural history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing from a wide range of sources, including political texts, parliamentary speeches, histories, biographies, and educational curricula, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism shows how and why Burke's reputation was transformed over a formative period of British history. In doing so, it bridges the significant gap between the history of political thought as conventionally understood and the history of the making of political traditions. The result is to demonstrate that, by 1914, Burke had been firmly established as a "conservative" political philosopher and was admired and utilized by political Conservatives in Britain who identified themselves as his intellectual heirs. This was one essential component of a conscious re-working of C/conservatism which is still at work today.
Download or read book The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott s Conservatism written by Corey Abel and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-03-06 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of recent scholarship on the thought of Michael Oakeshott includes essays by both distinguished and established authors as well as a fresh crop of younger talent. Together, they address the meanings of Oakeshott's conservatism through the lenses of his ideas on religion, history, and tradition, and explore his relationships to philosophers ranging from Hume to Ryle, Cavell, and others. The collection assigns no single or final meaning to Oakeshott's conservatism, but finds in him a number of possibilities for thinking fruitfully about what conservatism might mean, when it is no longer considered as a doctrine, but as a habit or a turn of mind.
Download or read book The History of European Conservative Thought written by Francesco Giubilei and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern conservatism was born in the crisis of the French Revolution that sought to overturn Christianity, monarchy, tradition, and a trust in experience rather than reason. In the name of reason and progress, the French Revolution led to the guillotine, the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, and a decade of continental war. Today Western Civilization is again in crisis, with an ever-widening progressive campaign against religion, tradition, and ordered liberty; Francesco Giubilei's cogent reassessment of some of conservatism's greatest thinkers could not be timelier. Within these pages, English-speaking readers will come across some familiar names: Burke, Disraeli, Chesterton, and Scruton. Americans get their own chapter too, including penetrating examinations of John Adams, Richard Weaver, Henry Regnery, Robert Nisbet, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr., and Barry Goldwater. But perhaps most interesting is Giubilei's coverage of the continental European tradition–largely Catholic, monarchical, traditionalist, and anti-Jacobin, anti-Communist, and anti-Fascist. Giubilei offers insightful intellectual portraits of statesmen and philosophers like Count Klemens von Metternich, the man who restored Europe after the Napoleonic Wars; Eric Voegelin, the German political philosopher who made his career in America and traced recurrent strains of leftism to an early Christian heresy; Joseph de Maistre, the leading French counterrevolutionary philosopher; George Santayana, a Spaniard who became an American philosopher and conservative pragmatist; Jose Ortega y Gasset, who warned of the "revolt of the masses"; and a wide variety of Italian thinkers whose conservatism was forged against a Fascist ideology that presented itself as a force for stability and respect for the past, but that was fundamentally modernist and opposed to conservatism. Unique and written by one of Italy's youngest and brightest conservative thinkers, Francesco Giubilei's History of European Conservative Thought is sure to enlighten and inform.
Download or read book An Introduction to the Politics and Philosophy of Jos Ortega Y Gasset written by Andrew Dobson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-19 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a general survey of the life and work of the Spanish philosopher and essayist Ortega y Gasset (1183-1955), author of the widely read The Revolt of the Masses. Dr Dobson divides his study into sections devoted to Ortega's political thinking and to his philosophy, rooting these in the context of contemporary Spain and discussing the wider implications of their influence. He examines Ortega's position with regard to the Civil War, his ambivalent espousal of socialism, his emphasis on the importance of the select individual in the modernisation of society and creation of a nació vital; the appropriation of his ideas by Primo de Rivera in the cause of fascism. This book is intended to be accessible to both Hispanists and general readers with an interest in literature, history, intellectual and political thought and philosophy.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott written by Terry Nardin and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive study of Michael Oakeshott as a philosopher rather than a political theorist, which is how most commentators have regarded him. Indeed, the careful reading of his published and unpublished writings that Terry Nardin provides here shows that Oakeshott's concerns have been primarily philosophical, not political. These writings go far beyond politics to offer a critical philosophy of human activity and of the disciplines that interpret and explain it. Oakeshott argues that inquiry can be independent of practical concerns, even when its subject is the thought and action of human beings. Although the book considers Oakeshott's views on morality, law, and government, it is primarily concerned with his ideas about the character of knowledge, especially knowledge of intelligent human conduct, and focuses attention on the concepts of modality, contingency, and civility that are central to Oakeshott's philosophy as a whole. Nardin seeks to show how Oakeshott's critique of scientism and other forms of foundationalism supports a powerful version of the argument that history is the proper mode for understanding human choice and action. The book thus provides the fullest discussion available of Oakeshott's antifoundationalist view of epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of history and the human sciences. It examines his arguments concerning the criteria of truth, the forms of knowledge, the relationship between theory and practice, the place of interpretation in the social sciences, the nature and importance of historical explanation, and the definition of philosophy itself. And it is the first study to look at Oakeshott's relationship to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and other movements in twentieth-century Continental philosophy.
