Conclusion

Amy E. Varela

pp. 199-208

in: David McIlwain, Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Abstract

McIlwain concludes his comparison between the thought of Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss by examining the two thinkers in terms of the quarrel of poetry and philosophy, drawing out the connections between the themes of religious and national inheritances, history, and the problem of theory and practice. The nub of contention comes to center on the question of the passions and whether they are guided and elevated by reason as eros (as Strauss argued) or require the autonomy of will and artifice to reach their full virtuosity (Oakeshott's position). This leads to a final confrontation with "the problem of Socrates' involving an engagement with the tragic worldview of Nietzsche and its relation to the comedy of Aristophanes and the character of Don Quixote.