 For Oakeshott, civil associations are fundamental to modern, free democracies, and opposed to the modern interventionist state. Enterprise associations, in contrast, are defined by a common purpose; society is not one of them. This distinction reflects another between “intellectual”—expressing “rationalism” in politics—and “practical”. Politics, for Oakeshott, belongs to the mode of practice, along with religion and morality; the two other modes are science and history. As well as attacking “rationalists”, who have a rational plan and believe in abstract rights, Oakeshott also criticised “empiricists”, who claim to be pragmatic, rejecting tradition in favour of mere reaction to events. We again see that conservatism, although a practical standpoint that appeals to experience, does not rest on philosophical empiricism.