Kenneth McIntyre has provoked considerable discussion with his review of Gene Callahan’s Oakeshott on Rome and America. And rightly so: Oakeshott’s critique of “rationalism” poses a serious challenge to cherished assumptions about our rhetorical tradition, Constitution, and contemporary political practice. From Oakeshott’s perspective, contemporary American political discourse is dominated by a priori deduction from first principles about liberty, rights, or the function of social institutions, rather than reflection on lived experience. MacIntyre counters:
I think there are two distinct sets of conclusions to take away from the book. First, the academic conclusion would be that a new approach to American political history and political thought is necessary. The first order of business will be to devise a more adequate periodization in which it is acknowledged that today’s U.S. constitutional arrangement has about as much to do with that of either 1785 or 1805 as the contemporary British constitutional arrangement has to do with its 18th-century “mixed constitution” ancestor. There have been at least four distinctive American republics, if not more, though, unlike the French, we don’t normally rip up our document and start over when we change constitutions.
Academic historians of American political thought should eschew hagiography and pay attention to what the participants actually say, why they say it, and how far what they say differs from the actual political and social reality of their time. Leave the hagiography to the journalists and focus on the historical meaning of various utterances and actions and the connection between such meanings and the self-conceptions (largely mythical) of Americans contemporary to the subjects of study.
These are reasonable guidelines for a non-ideological history of American politics. I am puzzled, however, by MacIntyre’s suggestion that academics are not already trying to satisfy them.
First, there’s nothing novel about the idea that America has experienced periodic “refoundings”. On the contrary, it’s something of a commonplace among scholars of American political development. Consider the standard textbook, The Presidency and the Political System. In Chapter 3, Marc Landy and Sidney Milkis argue that Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and FDR each introduced revolutionary interpretations of the Constitution, particularly the role of the executive. So the Oakeshottian criticism of “constitutional fundamentalism” may be right. But there’s little evidence of that view in contemporary history or political science scholarship.
Similarly, I see little hagiography in the recent literature on specific figures. On the contrary, the great achievement of Bernard Bailyn was to inspire a generation of students who have attempted precisely to “pay attention to what the participants [in American history] actually say, why they say it, and how far what they say differs from the actual political and social reality of their time.” Even popular studies, such as Richard Brookhiser’s James Madison (see my review here) make a point of presenting the founders as practical politicians working in specific contexts, rather than as quasi-divine oracles.
Admirers of Oakeshott should welcome these developments. So should critics of his political philosophy who care about historical understanding. Fortunately, the intellectual prospect is much more favorable than MacIntyre indicates. The real challenge is to move effectively from the world of ideas to empirical politics.
Jack Ross 
Oakeshott introduced me to conservatism as a political philosophy, so I’m very grateful for his work. But at the end of the day Oakeshott is not a conservative but a late modernity liberal.
Leo Strauss writes that modern political philosophy began as a rejection of practice in favor of theory: having discovered natural rights, we can found a new society based on fully rational principles. (This is what the Founding Fathers more or less did.) The Counterrevolution following the French Revolution reacted by elevating practice above theory: politics is a purely practical activity for which one does not need constitutional theory – just reverence for common law, which is the product of millions of individual irrational deeds and God’s guiding Hand (cf. Hegel).
While the Socrates conservatives rightly honor was fully aware of the ability of the politician to gain and hold power without the philosopher’s help, he saw the possibility of rulers being educated, of them understanding the political community from a distance (i.e. the philosopher’s point of view) and knowing how to secure the good life for the well-to-do and the philosophers.
St.Thomas Aquinas widened this circle to all citizens: with the philosopher’s insight into natural law can and should some civilization into the city. This is what the Church has stood for in relation to worldly government: through rational principles (i.e. theory) it has not substituted practice, but has clearly demarcated the borders a state should not trespass (e.g. property rights), and has given the political community a sense of what the summum bonum is.
From the perspective of the classical and Christian tradition conservatism cherishes, Oakeshott is a late modern irrationalist in that he does not see the value of rationalization in societal affairs.
Oakeshott uses the classical analogy of politics as sailing, arguing (implicitly against Socrates) that the purpose of sailing is just to keep afloat. But that leaves much to be desired. Why do sailors stay on a boat (on which they have to work) just to keep afloat? Why don’t they swim away when land is nearby? In other words: what keeps people law-abiding and loyal in a political community? This fundamental question is outside of Oakeshott’s limited philosophical view.