SCEPTICISM IN POLITICS: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MICHAEL OAKESHOTT AND JOHN DUNN Roy Tseng 1 Abstract: Although they hold different political positions, Oakeshott and Dunn actually share in common a sceptical reading of the human condition and the nature of politics. There are, however, two sceptical traditions within the British context that they seem, respectively, to have followed: the Humean autonomy of practice and the Lockean quest for guidance. It is hoped that by tracing their sources back to Hume and Locke, Oakeshott’s and Dunn’s conflicting views on the theory of practical reason, namely the detachment view versus the engagement view, can be well expli- cated, and that the differentia between the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ can be philosophically reconsidered. Keywords: Michael Oakeshott, John Dunn, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Michel De Montaigne, Sextus Empiricus, British political thought, scepticism, political scepticism, pyrrhonism, politics without principles, pru- dence, practical reasoning, political judgment, the relation between theory and prac- tice, historiography, the Right, the Left. I Introduction Drawing on Professor John Dunn’s recent quest for political understanding by reference to Locke’s ‘sceptical vision’, this article aims to compare his version of political philosophy to that of Michael Oakeshott. At first glance, it seems that Oakeshott and Dunn hold the two opposite political positions com- monly identified as the ‘right’ and the ‘left’. 2 It is my contention, however, that there exists a crucial thread which runs through both thinkers’ theoretical concerns, namely moderate scepticism or mitigated scepticism. In a nutshell, the mitigated scepticism in question spells out a particular epistemic predica- ment, which a number of modern thinkers have contended with: because of HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXIV No. 1. Spring 2013 1 Institute of Political Science, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424, Republic of China. Email: roytseng@mail.nsysu.edu.tw 2 In political terms, I am basically following Dunn to identify the ‘left’ as a stance invoking the socialist promise of social justice ‘organizing on any basis but that of pri- vate ownership and control of the means of production’; whereas the ‘right’ is taken to imply the position which values liberty more than equality, political freedom more than distributive justice. John Dunn, The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics (London, 2000), p. 186. A significant part of this article, however, focuses on a reconsid- eration of the philosophical meaning of the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ and their possible meet- ing place from the standpoint of scepticism. Copyright (c) Imprint Academic 2013 For personal use only -- not for reproduction