Back in Plato’s Cave with Michael Oakeshott

Abstract

Although not always included among his intellectual sources, there is a notorious platonism in the philosophical reflection of Oakeshott, attributable to the influence of British neohegelianism. However, through his essays, Oakeshott will not fail to critically pronounce on the rationalist and intellectualist assumptions of the platonic political conception. In this article, Oakeshott's ambivalent relation to platonism is explored, as is recognized in the particular reinterpretation of the cave allegory contained in On human conduct. In the return to the cave, our interpretation of Oakeshott not only recognizes a critique of the rationalist's claims in politics, but also an invitation to explore the meeting of the different modes of the human imagination and a defense of the relevance of “the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind”