The place of enlightenment in Michael Oakeshott’s conception of liberal education
The place of enlightenment in Michael Oakeshott’s conception of liberal education

Summary/Abstract: There is now widespread suspicion of, and even hostility towards, the liberal educational ideal on the ground that it embodies an elitist ideal available only to the few. This article examines a radical revision of the classical ideal of liberal education by Michael Oakeshott, the essence of which is to respond to the charge of elitism by injecting into the liberal ideal of education a concept of enlightenment which, it is suggested, is somewhat akin to that sketched by Spinoza in his short Tract on the Emendation of the Intellect (Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione), in which Spinoza argues that the good for man consists in overcoming powerful illusions that inspire feelings of alienation (as we would now term them) from the world. The attempt to present Oakeshott’s vision of liberal education in a Spinozistic perspective – as a quest, that is, for enlightenment in the face of illusion – may be suggestive in so far as it links his educational ideal to the concept of a ‘way’, or path, found in ancient and oriental thought but uncommon in the modern European world.

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