Jurisprudential Origins of Edmund Burke’s Conservatism                                         Feng Keli

Edmund Burke had been seen as “father of conservatism,” a prevailing opinion that overlooks the influence of law education Burke received during his early years. Burke is not the initiator of modern conservatism as many textbooks say. A more proper evaluation will be that, while observing and commenting on the on going political events especially the upheaval of the French Revolution, Burke fully utilized his sound knowledge on common law received in his early education, especially a kind of historical view in it, making conservatism an ideology with high consciousness in later political discourses. That is really a remarkable achievement in the perspective of history of thought. Only the background knowledge of the common-law tradition can constitute a necessary base for understanding the characteristics of Burke’s thought in the complex pedigree of modern conservatism.