Is there more to Edmund Burke than political conservatism?

There is more to Burke’s philosophy than a simple celebration of the established social order

Burke is acclaimed as one of the originators of modern political conservatism (Getty)

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) is acclaimed today as one of the originators of modern political conservatism. In particular, his defence of the virtues of tradition and prejudice in Reflections on the Revolution in France is considered exemplary as a statement of conservative principles.

However, there is more to Burke’s philosophy than a simple celebration of the established social order. Not least, it is suffused with a thoroughgoing scepticism about the character and capability of human beings, which led him to reject the Enlightenment view that reason can be readily employed to the betterment of mankind. In this sense, Burke’s ideas can be seen as a counterblast against the sort of Enlightenment thinking that was sweeping through Europe towards the end of the 18th century.

Burke was born to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother in Ireland in 1729. Raised as a Protestant, he excelled at school, passing entrance examinations to Trinity College, Dublin in 1746. After graduating he moved to London, where he studied law at Temple’s Inn. However, he was more interested in the world of letters than the legal profession, and after the publication of his satirical A Vindication of Natural Society, and then a year later a philosophical study of aesthetics titled A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, he became thoroughly immersed in London literary life.