Download or read book Conversations with Roger Scruton written by Mark Dooley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A candid and personal insight into the life and work of the philosopher and writer Roger Scruton, by his intellectual biographer Mark Dooley. This book reveals what life was like for Roger Scruton growing up in High Wycombe, how he survived Cambridge and how he came to hold his conservative outlook. It tells of Scruton's rise to prominence while writing for The Times and sheds light on his campaign on behalf of underground dissidents in Eastern Europe. Ranging across topics as diverse as the current state of British philosophy, music, religion, and illuminating what lay behind Scruton's abandonment of academia for his new life on a Wiltshire farm, Conversations with Roger Scruton is an intimate portrait of a writer who has felt philosophy as a vocation and whose defence of unfashionable causes has brought him a wide readership in Britain and around the world.
Download or read book How to be a conservative written by Roger Scruton and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roger Scruton's How to be a Conservative presents the case for modern conservatism not in the terms of an elegy but rather as a practical example of how to live as a conservative despite the pressures to live otherwise. As he writes, the book 'is not about what we have lost, but about what we have retained, and how to hold on to it'. In this witty and frank account, Scruton draws on his years of experience as a counter-cultural presence in public life. He examines the truths in Nationalism, Socialism, Capitalism, Liberalism, Multiculturalism, Environmentalism, Internationalism and finally Conservatism. The book concludes on a personal note, with 'a valediction forbidding mourning but admitting loss'.
Download or read book Gentle Regrets written by Roger Scruton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roger Scruton is Britain's best known intellectual dissident, who has defended English traditions and English identity against an official culture of denigration. Although his writings on philosophical aesthetics have shown him to be a leading authority in the field, his defence of political conservatism has marked him out in academic circles as public enemy number one. Whether it is Scruton's opinions that get up the nose of his critics, or the wit and erudition with which he expresses them, there is no doubt that their noses are vastly distended by his presence, and constantly on the verge of a collective sneeze. Contrary to orthodox opinion, however, Roger Scruton is a human being, and Gentle Regrets contains the proof of it - a quiet, witty but also serious and moving account of the ways in which life brought him to think what he thinks, and to be what he is. His moving vignettes of his childhood and later influences illuminate this book. Love him or hate him, he will engage you in an argument that is both intellectually stimulating and informed by humour.
Download or read book Notes from Underground written by Roger Scruton and published by Beaufort Books. This book was released on 2014-03-12 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in the twilight years of the Czechoslovak communist regime, recalled from the suburbs of Washington, this novel describes a doomed love affair between two young people trapped by the system. Roger Scruton evokes a world in which every word and gesture bears a double meaning, as people seek to find truth amid the lies and love in the midst of betrayal. The novel tells the story of Jan Reichl, condemned to a menial life by his father's alleged crime, and of Betka, the girl who offers him education, opportunity and love, but who mysteriously refuses to commit herself.
Download or read book Conversations on Art and Aesthetics written by Hans Maes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is art? What counts as an aesthetic experience? Does art have to beautiful? Can one reasonably dispute about taste? What is the relation between aesthetic and moral evaluations? How to interpret a work of art? Can we learn anything from literature, film or opera? What is sentimentality? What is irony? How to think philosophically about architecture, dance, or sculpture? What makes something a great portrait? Is music representational or abstract? Why do we feel terrified when we watch a horror movie even though we know it to be fictional? In Conversations on Art and Aesthetics, Hans Maes discusses these and other key questions in aesthetics with ten world-leading philosophers of art: Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, Arthur Danto, Cynthia Freeland, Paul Guyer, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jerrold Levinson, Jenefer Robinson, Roger Scruton, and Kendall Walton. The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and give a clear account of these thinkers' core ideas and intellectual development. They also offer new insights into, and a deeper understanding of, contemporary issues in the philosophy of art.
Download or read book How to Think Seriously about the Planet written by Roger Scruton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-10 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roger Scruton here makes a plea to rescue environmental politics from the activist movements and to return them to the people. The book defends the legacy of home-building and practical reasoning with which ordinary human beings solve their environmental problems, and attacks the alarmism and hysteria that are being used to uproot these resources, while putting nothing coherent in their place.
Download or read book News From Somewhere written by Roger Scruton and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2005-12-20 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a number of years Roger Scruton has contributed a weekly article to the Financial Times on country matters. Always beautifully written, one of these pieces (Vegetables) won the 2002 prize from The Queen's English Society for the best piece of prose writing of the year. These are not sentimental bucolic rambles. Scruton's prose is devoid of sentimentality and soggy nostalgia. Whatever he writes about, he always writes with serious purpose. He speaks up for the country dweller who sees his or her world eroded by the wishy-washy liberal commands of Blairite dogooders who sit on their backsides in North West London pontificating about the needs of country people. Nature being red in tooth and claw is something that these people only know about from sitting in a classroom. Farming issues are equally important in this book. The devastations of the foot and mouth crisis showed graphically how great is the divide between town and country dwellers. And when the fate of people in the countryside is decided by bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg, their feeling of alienation is even greater. These are the causes that Professor Scruton espouses and he has become their most intelligent, articulate and clear-thinking advocate.
Download or read book I Drink Therefore I Am written by Roger Scruton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-03 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here Scruton explains the connection between good wine and serious thought with a heady mix of humour and philosophy. We are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health and also the rival opinion that any more than a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin. Whether or not good for the body, Scruton argues, wine, drunk in the right frame of mind, is definitely good for the soul. And there is no better accompaniment to wine than philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn not only to drink in thoughts but to think in draughts. This good-humoured book offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap that is written about wine today and a profound apology for the drink on which civilisation has been founded. In vino veritas.
Download or read book Conservatism written by Roger Scruton and published by All Points Books. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “...one of the most eloquent and even moving evocations of the conservative tradition in Western politics, philosophy and culture I have ever read...the ideal primer for those who are new to conservative ideas...” —Richard Aldous, Wall Street Journal A brief magisterial introduction to the conservative tradition by one of Britain’s leading intellectuals. In Conservatism, Roger Scruton offers the reader an invitation into the world of political philosophy by explaining the history and evolution of the conservative movement over the centuries. With the clarity and authority of a gifted teacher, he discusses the ideology's perspective on civil society, the rule of law, freedom, morality, property, rights, and the role of the state. In a time when many claim that conservatives lack a unified intellectual belief system, this book makes a very strong case to the contrary, one that politically-minded readers will find compelling and refreshing. Scruton analyzes the origins and development of conservatism through the philosophies and thoughts of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, among others. He shows how conservative ideas have influenced the political sector through the careers of a diverse cast of politicians, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Disraeli, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. He also takes a close look at the changing relationship between conservative politics, capitalism, and free markets in both the UK and the US. This clear, incisive guide is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Western politics and policies, now and over the last three centuries.
Download or read book On Human Nature written by Roger Scruton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroës to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant’s suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say “I”—by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today’s most fashionable ideas about our species.
Download or read book Beauty A Very Short Introduction written by Roger Scruton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011-03-24 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a book that is itself beautifully written, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores this timeless concept, asking what makes an object--either in art, in nature, or the human form--beautiful.--From publisher description.
Download or read book The Decadent Society written by Ross Douthat and published by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a “clever and stimulating” (The New York Times Book Review) portrait of how our turbulent age is defined by dark forces seemingly beyond our control. The era of the coronavirus has tested America, and our leaders and institutions have conspicuously failed. That failure shouldn’t be surprising: Beneath social-media frenzy and reality-television politics, our era’s deep truths are elite incompetence, cultural exhaustion, and the flight from reality into fantasy. Casting a cold eye on these trends, The Decadent Society explains what happens when a powerful society ceases advancing—how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemate, and demographic decline creates a unique civilizational crisis. Ranging from the futility of our ideological debates to the repetitions of our pop culture, from the decline of sex and childbearing to the escapism of drug use, Ross Douthat argues that our age is defined by disappointment—by the feeling that all the frontiers are closed, that the paths forward lead only to the grave. Correcting both optimism and despair, Douthat provides an enlightening explanation of how we got here, how long our frustrations might last, and how, in renaissance or catastrophe, our decadence might ultimately end.
Download or read book The Apostles Creed written by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I believe. These two words are among the most explosive words any human can utter. The Apostles' Creed has shaped and guided Christian faith for almost two thousand years. Shared by Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions, it is perhaps the most compelling statement of Christian doctrine the world has ever known. But do we know what it really means—and how it applies to us today? In The Apostles' Creed, renowned theologian and pastor R. Albert Mohler Jr. works line-by-line and phrase-by-phrase through each section of the Creed, revealing the rich truths it contains, including: the profound mystery of the Trinity the miracle of the Incarnation the world-shaking truth of the resurrection the hope of Christ's return the theological heritage contained in this ancient statement The Apostles’ Creed is an often-overlooked treasure that contains the power to shape us for vibrant and steadfast living today, equipping believers to live faithfully in a post-Christian culture.
Download or read book The Disappeared written by Roger Scruton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Disappeared is a story of our times, of kidnap and rescue, of abuse and healing. It is the story of Stephen, a teacher whose love for the pupil who shares his dreams brings him face to face with ruin; of Sharon, the child of a feckless stepmother, and her criminal abusers; of Laura, the investigative high-flyer, now faced with rape and sexual slavery; of Justin, environmentalist and Heavy Metal fan, whose obsession with Muhibbah, rescued from forced marriage, spells disaster for them both. It is the story of a police force fearful of charges of racism, and a social worker, Iona, expected to make a viable community from fragments that will not join. With dizzying speed The Disappeared uncovers the chaotic underworld of a Yorkshire city, its characters eventually stumbling across one another in a single catastrophe. A victim may bring redemption: but who will it be?
Download or read book Key Philosophers in Conversation written by Andrew Pyle and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers in Conversation presents a highly readable and fascinating snapshot of the ideas of some of the world's leading contemporary philosophers.
Download or read book Culture Counts written by Roger Scruton and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boldly standing up to today's nihilisms and debasements of taste. Culture Counts offers a noble and compelling defense of high culture and the centrality of rich aesthetic experience for a full human life. The wisdom of roger scruton's judgments and the elegance of his prose are themselves powerful evidence for the truth of his thesis.
Download or read book The Soul of the World written by Roger Scruton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-06 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling defense of the sacred from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In The Soul of the World, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends the experience of the sacred against today's fashionable forms of atheism. He argues that our personal relationships, moral intuitions, and aesthetic judgments hint at a transcendent dimension that cannot be understood through the lens of science alone. To be fully alive—and to understand what we are—is to acknowledge the reality of sacred things. Rather than an argument for the existence of God, or a defense of the truth of religion, the book is an extended reflection on why a sense of the sacred is essential to human life—and what the final loss of the sacred would mean. In short, the book addresses the most important question of modernity: what is left of our aspirations after science has delivered its verdict about what we are? Drawing on art, architecture, music, and literature, Scruton suggests that the highest forms of human experience and expression tell the story of our religious need, and of our quest for the being who might answer it, and that this search for the sacred endows the world with a soul. Evolution cannot explain our conception of the sacred; neuroscience is irrelevant to our interpersonal relationships, which provide a model for our posture toward God; and scientific understanding has nothing to say about the experience of beauty, which provides a God’s-eye perspective on reality. Ultimately, a world without the sacred would be a completely different world—one in which we humans are not truly at home. Yet despite the shrinking place for the sacred in today’s world, Scruton says, the paths to transcendence remain open.
