Haosheng Li

The political thought of both Popper and Oakeshott are embodied in how each criticizes rationalist politics. There are two fundamental crises in rationalist politics: The utopianism of seeking perfect ideals and the technical politics of abridging political practices into social engineering. Popper holds a view of “critical rationalism” to recall rational critique to rescue rationalism, then puts forwards a project called “Piecemeal Social Engineering.” Oakeshott takes a view of “intimation in tradition,” and then presents a project named “Civil Association.” Both of Piecemeal Social Engineering and Civil Association overcome the first crisis successfully, but the latter addresses a more effective articulation of the second crisis. Therefore, Civil Association can avoid the plight of rationalist politics more thoroughly than Piecemeal Social Engineering.