The Political Reason of Edmund Burke

244 Pages·1960·9.43 MB·English

by  Francis Canavan

THE POLITICAL REASON OF EDMUND BURKE
Other titles in this series:
John Wild, Human Freedom and Social Order: An
essay in Christian philosophy
Kenneth W. Thompson, Christian Ethics and the
Dilemmas of Foreign Policy
THE POLITICAL REASON OF
EDMUND BURKE
Francis P. Canavan, s.j.
PUBLISHED FOR THE LILLY ENDOWMENT RESEARCH
PROGRAM IN CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS BY THE
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, DURHAM, N. C. 1960
(C) i960, Duke University Press
Cambridge University Press, London, N.W. 1, England
Library, of Congress Catalog Card 60-5795
Printed in the United States of America
by the Seeman Printery, Durham, N. C.
OitULP
Anna
and
T erry
and
Little Rose
OOP m r')

Foreword
What role can reason play in politics? In an age in which
increasingly the role of reason not only in politics but in
other areas of human activity as well is being disparaged, it
is helpful to turn for guidance to a thinker who claimed
neither too much nor too little for that role, to a statesman
who has appropriately been called “the prophet of political
common sense.” Although distrustful of abstract and specu¬
lative reason, of what today we would call ideological think¬
ing, Edmund Burke recognized that social order is the prod¬
uct of practical reason or prudence. It is the thesis of this
book that Burke “presents a way of thinking and a mode of
reasoning about politics and its problems which makes it
possible to approach them rationally, while avoiding both
unprincipled expediency and doctrinaire idealism.” This
book helps us to understand Burke as a Christian humanist
who has something significant to say to those of us in the
twentieth-century who are still concerned with the perennial
problem of reconciling political necessity with moral prin¬
ciples.
The author of this book is Francis P. Canavan, S.J., who
graduated from Fordham University in 1939. Upon gradua¬
tion he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus and in
1941 became a member of that Order. After several years of
study and teaching at various institutions he began studies
for the degree of Ph.D. in Political Science at Duke Uni¬
versity in 1952. During the year 1954-55 he went to Eng¬
land on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in order to
pursue his research on Edmund Burke. He received the
Ph.D. degree from Duke University in 1957. During the
Vlll FOREWORD
summer of 1958 Dr. Canavan participated in the first Sum¬
mer Research Conference sponsored by the Lilly Endowment
Research Program in Christianity and Politics at Duke Uni¬
versity. He is presently serving as Chairman of the Depart¬
ment of History and Political Science at St. Peter’s College,
Jersey City, New Jersey.
It should be understood, of course, that although the
publication of this book was made possible by funds provided
by Lilly Endowment, Inc., the Endowment is not the author
or publisher and is not to be understood as approving, by
virtue of its grant, any of the statements or views expressed
in the pages that follow.
John H. Hallowed, Director
Lilly Endowment Research Program
in Christianity and Politics