The Nature of Political Theory

Shoring Up Foundations 169

communitarians appear unperturbed about the whole issue of groups. Yet, embed-
dedness is far more perplexing than many communitarians seem to be aware. Part
of the reason for this is that communitarianism does not really offer a clear account
as to what community means. It rests its laurels on an assumed favourable normat-
ive harmony—either on a national or local level. It does not explain how the self is
constituted by often diverse, overlapping, and conflicting groups, loyalties and associ-
ations. Further, the precise relation between the appropriate conventional context and
the intelligibility of concepts, is, by the same argument, rendered deeply problematic.

Notes

1. In many ways the new hyper-concept or key ‘issue concept’ for the 2000s appears to be
   democracy, specifically deliberative democracy.


2. The explicit focus on ‘conventionalism’ in twentieth century thought did not initially
   arise (except indirectly) within the social sciences or political theory. The philosopher of
   science Henri Poincaré used the term, in 1902, to describe his particular understanding
   of science. Scientific objectivity, in his view, derived from the general agreement over
   conventions adopted within the scientific community. Scientific laws were all therefore
   disguised conventions. Thus, motion in mechanics could not be considered ana priori
   truth. Aristotelian mechanics was markedly different from the Newtonian conception,
   and so forth. Thus, self-evident truths were ruled out. Further, motion could not be
   considered an experimental fact. As Poincaré noted, ‘experiment may serve as a basis for
   the principle of mechanics, and yet will never invalidate them’, see Poincaré (1902: 105).
   Thus, conventions were regarded as distinct from both experimental anda prioritruth.


3. Although having been initially incubated in the Scottish universities and Oxford, and to a
   lesser extent at Cambridge, it is also worth noting that it was rapidly exported throughout
   the English speaking world during the same period.


4. Oakeshott asserts here the autonomy and significance of theGeisteswissenschaften.


5. Oakeshott recognizes something here that does not appear in the earlier works, that delib-
   erativereflectionisinvolvedwithpracticalactionanddoingintheworldandthatpersuasive
   argument can be designed to recommend or prompt choices, Oakeshott (1975: 48).


6. ‘Anaction...isanidentityinwhichsubstantiveperformanceandproceduralconsideration
   may be distinguished but are inseparably joined, and which the character of agent and that
   of practitioner are merged in a single self-recognition’, Oakeshott (1975: 57).


7. To justify an action ‘(that is, to invoke rules and rule-like principles as reasons for having
   chosen actions) is to embark upon a casuistical enterprise of distinctions, exceptions, and
   obliquities related to rules in which the vitality of a spoken language of moral intercourse
   is impaired and its integrity compromised. A calculated observance of specified rules has
   taken the place of the singleness and spontaneity of morally educated conduct’, Oakeshott
   (1975: 70).


8. ‘A state may perhaps be understood as an unresolved tension between the two irreconcilable
   dispositions represented by the wordssocietasanduniversitas’, Oakeshott (1975: 200–1).


9. Much of the terminology of both forms of state are seen to be inherited from the tradition
   and language of the realms and principalities of medieval Europe.


10. In fact he directly associates Fabianism with Cameralism, Oakeshott (1975: 311).