Roger Scruton

In “Wagner’s Parsifal: The Music of Redemption,” Sir Roger Scruton guides us—like Virgil—through the twisty cosmos of Richard Wagner and leaves us at the gates of paradise. Those who desire a treatment of Wagner’s final opera without the pollution of ideological criticism will find a wonderful breath of fresh air in Scruton’s treatment of the work.

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct Roger Scruton’s views on patriotism and similar attitudes of nationalism and oikophobia that endanger the proper love to homeland. According to Scruton, patriotism is the loyalty toward people who inhabited certain territory and share common culture, customs and history. Such understood feeling of national loyalty is peaceful by its nature and stabilizes the democratic system. Besides patriotism, Scruton distinguishes attitude of worship of nation and hostility towards it. The first attitude, transforming into nationalism, deifies nation and led to numerous wars and conflicts in history, whereas an attitude of hostility towards own nation (oikophobia) justifies the development of transnational institutions that limited sovereignty of the democratic nation-states and - indirectly - undermined the sovereignty of the people. In the final part of the paper I am going to paraphrase pictures of nation presupposed in attitudes of patriotism, nationalism and oikophobia in the notion apparatus of Leszek Nowak’s deformative concept of culture.
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Celem artykułu jest prezentacja poglądów Rogera Scrutona w kwestii patriotyzmu i dwóch postaw zagrażających właściwemu umiłowaniu ojczyzny: nacjonalizmu i ojkofobii. Patriotyzm w ujęciu Scrutona oznacza poczucie lojalności wobec ludzi zamieszkujących pewne terytorium, podzielających wspólną kulturę, obyczaje i historię. Tak rozumiane poczucie lojalności narodowej jest z natury rzeczy pokojowe i stabilizuje praktykę demokratyczną. Obok patriotyzmu, Scruton wyróżnia jeszcze dwie inne postawy: uwielbienia oraz niechęci wobec własnego narodu. Ta pierwsza postawa, przeradzając się w nacjonalizm deifikuje naród, prowadziła do licznych wojen i konfliktów w historii, natomiast postawa niechęci wobec własnego narodu (ojkofobia) stanowi uzasadnienie rozwoju instytucji ponadnarodowych, które ograniczając suwerenność demokratycznego państwa narodowego, pośrednio ograniczają władzę ludu. W końcowej części artykułu zamierzam sparafrazować obrazy narodu zakładane w postawie nacjonalizmu, patriotyzmu i ojkofobii w aparaturze pojęciowej deformacyjnej koncepcji kultury Leszka Nowaka.

A partire dalle idee sulla musica dei filosofi antichi, attraverso le concezioni medievali e rinascimentali, il volume considera l'impatto della rivoluzione scientifica, la stagione illuminista e gli sviluppi ottocenteschi, per giungere infine al ricco dibattito contemporaneo. Tra i principali autori trattati: i pitagorici, Platone, Aristotele, Aristosseno, Boezio, Agostino, Tomaso d'Aquino, Ficino, Galileo, Mersenne, Cartesio, Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, Novalis, Schelling, Wackenroder, Hoffmann, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Hanslick, Helmholtz, Nietzsche, Bloch, Adorno, Jankélévitch, Wittgenstein, S. Langer, P. Kivy, J. Levinson, N. Goodman, R. Scruton.

Il paper tratta della nozione di “giardino” e di come questo particolare tipo di arte (se si può parlare di arte) e questo particolare tipo di bellezza (se si può parlare di bellezza) è stato affrontato in tre autori: Immanuel Kant, Roger Scruton  e Arthur C. Danto.
Questo lavoro affronta principalmente tre testi: la Critica del Giudizio (1799¬III) di Kant, e in particolare il paragrafo 51;  La bellezza, ragione ed esperienza estetica (2009) di Scruton, in particolare il 4° capitolo,  La bellezza quotidiana; L’abuso della bellezza (2003) di Danto, e in particolare il 4° capitolo,  Bellezza e abbellimento.
Kant procedendo ad una divisione delle arti belle colloca il giardinaggio all’interno della pittura; analizzando soprattutto le differenze con un'altra categoria di queste arti (la plastica) tento di argomentare come Kant sia in gran parte influenzato dalla cultura del suo tempo nel considerare il giardino come un prodotto per l’osservazione di uno spettatore, ossia il paradigma del giardino all’inglese.
Scruton riprende il giardino considerandolo non solo come oggetto degli occhi ma come spazio dell’uomo. In questa argomentazione il giardino diventa l’esempio più chiaro di quel tipo di bellezza che fonde in sé due elementi: come già Kant prima di lui, Scruton tematizza il giardino come un’arte della medietà (between-ness), dove l’arte naturale ed artistica sono fuse insieme.
Danto riprendendo le varie arti vicine al giardino già trattate da Kant e Scruton e basandosi su temi hegeliani tematizza un terzo regno della bellezza, ossia un regno della bellezza quotidiana. Questo regno si differenzia dalla natura e dall’arte per due motivi principali: l’abbellimento e il rapporto con la morale.
In generale si può dire che il giardino è una nozione molto discussa e non costituisce certo un tema semplice e senza problematiche. Anzi si può dire che per la molteplicità ed eteronomia delle sue caratteristiche è stato certamente considerato un elemento evidenziatore e chiarificatore rispetto ad altri elementi che secondo Scruton e Danto, sempre di più nella nostro tempo cercano di emergere da quel regno della quotidianità dove sono stati relegati dalla tradizione estetica.

I explore the role of manners in the life of virtue, particularly with regard to their role in cultivating and then expressing virtue. The topic of manners is largely neglected among moral philosophers and when manners are discussed they are often seen as a separate domain from morality and as arbitrary social conventions that involve a significant degree of dishonesty. I seek to demonstrate how manners have an integral role to play in the moral life and how the concerns about arbitrariness and dishonesty can be overcome. Discussions about manners typically focus on their role in the social life of adults. However, to properly appreciate the integral role of manners in the moral life we need to focus, first of all, on how teaching good manners to children is one of the key ways that we initiate them into the life of virtue. The approach developed here is strongly Aristotelian-cum-Confucian in character, whereas recent philosophical discussions of manners that have seen moral value in them have tended to adopt a Kantian approach. Teaching good manners can be understood as a form of habituation into virtue as manners are patterns of behavior, often informed by culture and tradition. I discuss three crucial functions of good manners: (1) they help social life to go well; (2) they involve ways of showing respect or reverence for that which is respect-worthy or reverence-worthy; and (3) they elevate (or ennoble) our animal nature via an acquired second nature.

El propósito de este artículo es analizar el modo en que se
vincula el conservadurismo y el liberalismo económico a partir
de la crítica de Roger Scruton a Friedrich A. Hayek. Primero se
analizan los conceptos de libertad negativa, orden espontáneo y
catalaxia en Hayek; luego, se presenta la crítica del filósofo inglés
al austriaco; y, por último, se presenta la teoría social-económica
de Scruton como un modo de respuesta a las tensiones del
liberalismo económico.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relation between conservatism
and the doctrine of economic liberalism from the perspective
of Roger Scruton’s critique to Friedrich A. Hayek. We
carry out this attempt through three means: first, Hayek’s concepts
of negative freedom, spontaneous order, and catallaxy are
analyzed; second, the English philosopher’s critique of Hayek is
explained; and finally, Scruton’s social and economic theory is
presented as a response of the inconsistencies of economic liberalism.

This paper discusses Roger Scruton's theory of kitsch and investigates it relation to totalitarianism, through the figure of stupidity as discussed by Robert Musil. This threefold relationship, Scruton conceptualizes as a "spiritual disease". It is rendered possible through a distortion of the relation of modern communities to transcendence and redeemed through a restoration of the idea of beauty.

Ο αυνανισμός κατά παράδοση αξιολογείται από τη θεολογική και τη φιλοσοφική σκέψη ως παρέκκλιση και διαστροφή, θεώρηση που στην σκέψη του Immanuel Kant βρίσκει την απόλυτη φιλοσοφική της τεκμηρίωση. Ο Roger Scruton στο έργο του Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation ξαναδιαβάζει τις σχετικές θέσεις του Kant με λεπτότητα και ευγένεια, εστιάζοντας στον ρόλο της φαντασίας σε σχέση με τον αυνανισμό. Στο σύντομο αυτό δοκίμιο θα ισχυρισθώ πως η σημασία που αποδίδει ο Scruton στη φαντασία είναι δυσανάλογη της λειτουργίας της, και πως ενδεχομένως λειτουργεί αποπροσανατολιστικά για τη σκέψη, ιδίως όταν η φαντασία χρησιμοποιείται για να θεμελιώσει την εκ μέρους του Kant ρητή ηθική καταδίκη του αυνανισμού. Θα σχολιάσω, επίσης, τη διάκριση που υιοθετεί ο Scruton μεταξύ ‘υγιούς’ και ‘διεστραμμένου’ αυνανισμού, τη σχέση αναπαράστασης και υποκατάστασης στις δυο αυτές μορφές του, και την επίκληση του κινδύνου, η οποία συνδέει τη σκέψη του Scruton με αυτήν του Rousseau.

In this Mphil dissertation, I investigate the philosophical relation between the Czech phenomenologist Jan Patočka and the British conservative Roger Scruton. In the late seventies, both were involved in Czech dissidence against the communist regime. However, so far no research has been conducted on their philosophical relation. As Patočka pointed out, such philosophical experiments can be justified “only if the analysis sheds light on a philosophical problem.” The problem I have Scruton and Patočka address is what they call ‘the spiritual deficit of the modern world’. Both turn to spiritual education, or care for the soul, as a means to redeem this crisis.
This thesis consists of three parts. First, I provide a short historical overview of both Patočka and Scruton’s involvement in Czech dissidence. Second, I discuss Patočka’s four-part narrative on the history of the modern metaphysics of force, spiritual authority and the solidarity of the ‘shaken’. Third, I summarize Scruton’s interpretation of the modern predicament and its redemption through the figure of sacrifice and tragic heroism. Finally, I compare both authors in light of their reflections on totalitarianism and the connection between spiritual leadership and dissidence.

In his philosophical writings, Coleridge increasingly developed his thinking about imagination, a symbolizing precursor to contemplation, to a theory of contemplation itself, which for him occurs in its purest form as a manifestation of ‘Reason’.

Coleridge is a particularly challenging figure because he was a thinker in process, and something of an omnimath, a Renaissance man of the Romantic era. The dynamic quality of his thinking, the ‘dark fluxion’ pursued but ultimately ‘unfixable by thought’, and his extensive range of interests make essential an approach that is philosophical yet also multi-disciplinary.

This is the first collection of essays to be written mainly by philosophers and intellectual historians on Coleridge’s mature philosophy. With a foreword by Baroness Mary Warnock, and original essays on Coleridge and Contemplation by prominent philosophers such as Sir Roger Scruton, David E. Cooper, Michael McGhee, and Andy Hamilton, this volume provides a stimulating collection of insights and explorations into what Britain’s foremost philosopher-poet had to say about the contemplation that he considered to be the highest of the human mental powers.

The essays by philosophers are supported by new developments in philosophically minded criticism from Coleridge scholars in English departments, including Jim Mays, Kathleen Wheeler, and James Engell. They approach Coleridge as an energetic yet contemplative thinker concerned with the intuition of ideas and the processes of cultivation in self and society. Other essays, from intellectual historians and theologians, clarify the historical background, and ‘religious musings’, of Coleridge’s thought regarding contemplation.

Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020) fue un filósofo conservador, incómodo, independiente, autor de más de cincuenta libros. Sobre cuestiones estéticas destacan sus ensayos Art and Imagination: A Study in the Philosophy of Mind (1974), The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979), The Aesthetic Understanding: Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture (1983), The Aesthetics of Music (1997) y Beauty (2009).

Статья состоит из трех частей. В первой части содержится критический обзор таких тем, как отношение художника к природе, соотношение изображения природы с художественным вкусом в британской эстетике, начиная с XVIII века. Во второй части эти же проблемы рассмотрены в контексте современной эстетики. Третья часть посвящена работе Герберта Рида "Человечное искусство и бесчеловечная природа" (1952).

i write from a sense that we do not always have a clear conception of what we are doing when we philosophize about art. However, I have a subsidiary aim which is to try to understand and adjudicate one area of apparent disagreement between two philosophers whose work on music certainly deserves respect, namely, Roger Scruton and Malcolm Budd. These aims are related in that the differences in their respective positions appear to stem in part from the very different conceptions they have of the task of providing a theory of musical meaning. It will emerge, however, that many of these differences are terminological, and we shall be left with the question of whether their respective aims can be accommodated and reconciled within a framework which would be acceptable to both of them. This question will remain unanswered, although the discussion should lead to a firmer understanding of what they are doing and what anybody should be doing when they philosophize about music.

Roger Scruton is not much interested in the God of the typical philosopher of religion, and his work is of great significance to those, like myself, for whom questions of spirituality and praxis are just as important as those pertaining to metaphysics and theory. I have been equally drawn to his cognitive dualism – a position which promises to accommodate the sense in which the world has its source in God, but without this requiring that God and the world are to be viewed in conjunctive, separatist terms. Scruton’s position is not easy to pin down, and some of what he says suggests an implicit commitment to the ontological dualism he purports to reject. In what follows I spell out the relevant tensions, and clarify what it means to be an ontological or a cognitive dualist in this context. The positive position at which I arrive involves a form of cognitive dualism, and it grants a distinction between God and world, albeit with no concession to the offending form of ontological dualism. It also accords with much of what Scruton himself says, although there is no longer any motive for insisting that ‘things in themselves’ lie on the far and inaccessible side of thought, nor that the concept of the supernatural ‘must be severed from any ontological claims’. I conclude that such a position makes for a more consistent theistic picture.

In this chapter, I revisit my article ‘On Probation: “Tracey Emin” as Sign’ (Wasafiri, 2010), to
pose the question anew of what ‘Emin’ stands for in the widely diverse discourses that claim to
address her and her work. Despite her recent (relative) retreat from media exposure, Emin still looms large as a cipher of artistic deskilling, narcissism, and the assumed money-grabbing
vulgarity and inauthenticity of the most heavily promoted British art at the end of the
twentieth century, while also making a convenient target for right-wing backlash against feminisms
and conceptualisms, broadly defined. The chapter is largely devoted to a close reading of a minor
exhibition and its catalogue that received some media exposure largely thanks to its deployment of
Emin’s image: in Treason of the Scholars (2015), painter Peter Goodfellow and his conservative allies
make of ‘Emin’ a malleable sign that encompasses all the ills of contemporary culture as they see it.
‘Emin’’s malign manipulation in this case represents an extreme case of the widespread practice of
(ab)using ‘Emin’ as sign and of consistently overdetermining her by emptying her/it out.

The final and definite version of this chapter is published in TRACEY EMIN: ART INTO LIFE, edited by Alexandra Kokoli and Deborah Cherry (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), pp. 71-87.
ISBN: 9781350160606
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/tracey-emin-9781350160606/

I examine Roger Scruton's account of the religious and soteriological significance of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. The relation between Scruton and Wagner remains unclear, and the position at issue is a curious amalgam of the two. I refer to its author as 'Scruton's Wagner'. Scruton's Wagner argues that erotic love has religious and soteriological significance, and that the notions of religion and salvation are to be defined in terms which are shorn of any reference to God. I argue that there may be good reasons for setting these limits short of God, but that Scruton's Wagner does not provide them.

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
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.

Conversations on Art and Aesthetics will engage anyone who is philosophically curious about art and matters of aesthetics.

This essay gives an account of how traditional morality is best understood and also why it is worth defending (even if some reform is needed) and how this might be done. Traditional morality is first contrasted with supposedly more enlightened forms of morality, such as utilitarianism and liberal Kantianism (i.e., autonomy-centered ethics). The focus here is on certain sacred values that are central to traditional morality and which highlight this contrast and bring out the attractions of traditional morality. Next, this essay explores and offers support for the convergence thesis to which traditional morality, understood as common morality, is committed. This thesis states that although there are diverse moral traditions, insofar as they are in good order we should expect them to converge upon a common or universal morality, even if there remain some differences in the details. The defense of this thesis provides justification for the validity of traditional morality as it suggests an objective basis.

The receipt of an intimate substance, implicates a materiality of the deep. The wine, a raw material and not material, is opened by the Philosophy of the Imaginary by Gaston Bachelard. An infinity cosmology begins by the essences, the meanings and the senses that belong to the absolutes archetypes of the inner. From this categories, flows a huge classification about the material imagination and material reveries. The Wine taste and sense, in the bachelardian perspective, are deep and nearly unconscious experiences. The unconscious appears in the color yet, between the bloody red and golden liquid, the unconscious supports the shaping alchemy of the sense. An alchemy, that isn’t looking for the grape harvest but that is seeking about the philosopher drowsiness in the matter blaze. In this case, the wine conception is in a social ontological perspective that she develops beyond banquets and symposiums. The meeting happens in the intimate material, in a deployed material from the imaginary . The social object becomes the voice of a cosmic ontology, unfolded by a dialectic of the material and the deep. In this lecture, the wine Phenomenology and Metaphysic are both, imaginary  products of a theoretic vision.

[Botuar fillimisht ne revisten SHENJA, Shkup, 2017]
Mediat e varura lajmërojnë, në mënyrë të përsëritur, çeljen e një departamenti të ri të filozofisë pranë Universitetit Europian të Tiranës (UET). Ai, mësojmë, do t'i kushtohet i tëri dhe vetëm filozofisë « analitike ». Lajm i mirë, a priori, për këdo interesohet për filozofinë dhe universitetin në hapësirat shqiptare. Në traditën fetare, lajmi i mirë, nga greqishtja eu vangellon, ka dhënë në shqip Ungjillin. Bibla që do të përcjellë këtë dhjatë fringo të re quhet "Filozofia moderne. Nga Aristoteli te filozofia analitike". Autori i saj, një filozof anglez konservator : Roger Scruton, Doctor Honoris Causa i UET-it, sikundër edhe Behgjet Pacolli. Fotoja hieratike e shën Avokatit, rrethuar nga 12 apostujt e zgjedhur (ndër të cilët NJË grua), me librin e shenjtë në dorë qarkullon nëpër rrjetet sociale. UET është jo vetëm botuesi, por edhe tempulli i vetëshpallur i kësaj feje te re.