Conservatism
Longstanding institutions can contain practical knowledge that abstract design overlooks.
What it claims
The philosophical conservatism considered here is a claim about the limits of reason rather than a fixed policy platform. Burke pictures society as a partnership across the living, the dead, and those yet to be born. Practices can embody accumulated adaptation that no participant can fully articulate.
Nearby positions
Key thinkers
Edmund Burke · Michael Oakeshott · David Hume · Roger Scruton