MICHAEL OAKESHOTT AND EDUCATION: MODERN INTERPRETATIONS

The dynamic structural changes affecting the modern university provide fertile ground for a large number of discussions on the organization of higher education. Controversy about the future of education exists, perhaps, at all levels of communication: the fundamental problems of educa- tional institutions are determined and a significant number of proposals for reforming and mod- ernizing the education system are being developed. Some observers determine the need to cre- ate a system of free learning, denying the normative nature of education, while others are trying to determine the list of canonical disciplines and great books that should be limited to students and teachers. Additional observers believe that efforts to transform the university into an effective educational organization gradually reduce the teaching process to a set of technical functions, threatening genuine learning opportunities. In the process of reforms, the idea of a university was, if not lost, then at least obscured by the modern trend for the search for hidden goals of educa- tion and programs to achieve them. As the world is replete with goals and programs, it becomes an increasingly irresistible temptation for academic institutions to submit to inevitably conflicting best practices. In this regard there is again a demand for the study of the forms of organizing higher education developed by the greatest theorists of our time. The article examines the current aspects of the discussion about the concept of education in the political philosophy of Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990). The author attempts to interpret the political theory of M.Oakeshott as a form of political education.