P. F. Strawson; II*—Scruton and Wright on Anti-Realism Etc., Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 77, Issue 1, 1 June 1977, Pages 15–22, https://doi.

This book covers the field of and points to the intersections between politics, art and philosophy. Its hero, the late Sir Roger Scruton had a longstanding interest in all fields, acquiring professional knowledge in both the practice and theory of politics, art and philosophy. The claim of the book is, therefore, that contrary to a superficial prejudice, it is possible to address the philosophical issues of art and politics in the same oeuvre, as the example of this Cambridge-educated analytical (...) philosopher proves. Accordingly, the book has a bold thesis on the general, theoretical level, mapping the connections between politics, art and philosophy. However, it also has a pioneering commitment on the level of the particular, offering the first full-length study into the philosophical legacy of Roger Scruton, probably the most important British conservative philosopher of the late 20th and the first decades of the 21st century. It also allows reader to look into the philosopher’s fascination with Central European art and culture. Finally, it also provides a daring analysis of the late Scruton’s metaphysical inspirations, connecting the arts, and especially music, with religion and the bonds of love. (shrink)

ROGER SCRUTON’s An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy takes a personal and provocative look at the subject—those abstract, but nevertheless practical, problems that concern anyone who has reflected on his or her life. Of special delight is his discussion of sex and music. I make some brief critical comments on this based on new economic approaches.

Of all the things we eat or drink, wine is without question the most complex. So it should not be surprising that philosophers have turned their attention to wine: complex phenomena can lend themselves to philosophical speculation. Wine is complex not just in the variety of tastes it presents – ‘wine tastes of everything apart from grapes’, I once heard an expert say – but in its meaning...

Roger Scruton is dismissed by those who do not care to study him as a conservative philosopher. This review shows how Scruton is in fact more a theologian than a philosopher. This review is contrarian in tone to the reviews of Scruton to be found online and restores him as the rightful heir to theologians like Barth, Bultmann etc.

For many years Sir Roger Scruton’s incendiary pen, his own fine-point flamethrower, provoked outrage in the fields of journalism, literature, and in popular, as well as academic studies. As a philo...

A series of papers on different aspects of practical knowledge by Roderick Chisholm, Rudolf Haller, J. C. Nyiri, Eva Picardi, Joachim Schulte Roger Scruton, Barry Smith and Johan Wrede.

Metaphor in Experience of Musical Work. Account of Roger Scruton's Theory Author analyses Roger Scruton's theory of metaphorical transfer outlined in his The Aesthetics of Music. Tone and a special kind of listening constitute the main elements of music in Scruton's music aesthetics. It is through the listening experience, one in which physical sound changes into musical tone, that music comes into being. The change - Scruton argues - takes place when spatial and time metaphors are (...) employed to describe and name what we listen to. Author further examines Scruton's theory, his concept of metaphor and metaphorical transfer and also his account of experience of music understood as an experience of double intentionality. In conclusions, author argues that Scruton's account of music is inspirational and phenomenologically true even if -author feels - it fails to explain what is really unique in the listening experiences of music. (shrink)

This essay articulates a kind of conservatism that it argues is the most fundamental and important kind of conservatism, viz. existential conservatism, which involves an affirmative and appreciative stance towards the given world. While this form of conservatism can be connected to political conservatism, as seen with Roger Scruton, it need not be, as seen with G. A. Cohen. It is argued that existential conservatism should be embraced whether or not one embraces political conservatism, though it is also shown (...) that existential conservatism imposes constraints on our political thinking. In particular, it is argued that Cohen's ‘luck egalitarianism’ stands at odds with his existential conservatism and that one should be a sufficientarian rather than an egalitarian with regard to economic justice. (shrink)

'PERHAPS WHAT is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express)', wrote Wittgenstein, 'is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning'. Wittgenstein's remark is a useful reminder to all who attempt to write about the nature and the value of art, for there our powers of expression often seem inadequate to the phenomena we aim to describe. In such cases it is natural to direct attention to the 'background' of aesthetic experience itself. In (...) consequence, many philosophical elucidations of art works will make good sense only to whose who are already engaged with them on their own terms—engaged with their distinctive character and forms. That this is so is perhaps most evident when the philosopher's target is the art of music. Roger Scruton's latest contribution to philosophical aesthetics, The Aesthetics of MusIc, is guided by a deep appreciation of the background of musical experience and he often allows music to speak for itself, through musical example and illustration. This study is exceptionally, if not uniquely, informed by a wide and thorough acquaintance with its subject matter, and it is commendably replete with references to, andmusic examples illustrating specific compositions. (shrink)

Can music be considered a language of the emotions? The most common view today is that this is nothing but a Romantic cliché. Mainstream philosophy seems to view the claim that 'Music is the language of the emotions' as a slogan that was once vaguely defended by Rousseau, Goethe, or Kant, but that cannot be understood literally when one takes into consideration last century’s theories of language, such as Chomsky's on syntax or Tarski's on semantics (Scruton 1997: ch. 7, (...) see also Davies 2003: ch. 8, and Kania 2012). In this chapter, I will show why this common view is unwarranted, and thus go against nowadays philosophical mainstream by defending what I call the musicalanguage hypothesis. In Section 1, I will introduce the musicalanguage hypothesis and present, based on empirical evidence, some of the many similarities between language and music and explain why we should take them seriously. I will introduce a framework that aims to explain the communicative power of music using what we already know about linguistic communication (1.1). I will then outline several working hypotheses about musical grammar, musical meaning, and affective meaning (1.2), and thus defend that music is indeed very close to literally be a language of the emotions. In Section 2, I will detail some of the methodology, expectations, and preliminary results of a cross-cultural study on musical grammar that I am presently conducting between South India (Chennai) and Switzerland (Geneva and Lausanne)4. This empirical study focuses on two musical idioms and their grammatical features: Western classical music of the Common Period (ca. 1600-1900) and South Indian classical music (also know as Carnatic music). The main hypothesis of this study is that you need to master the grammar of a musical idiom in order to properly understand its musical meanings. (shrink)

The idea that there is a coherent and morally relevant concept of sexual perversions has been increasingly called into question. In what follows, I will be concerned with two recent attacks on the notion of sexual perversion: those of Graham Priest and Igor Primoratz. Priest’s paper is the deeper of the two. Primoratz goes methodically through various accounts of sexual perversion and finds difficulties in them. This is no small task, of course, but unlike Priest he does not attempt to (...) provide any diagnosis of why any attempt to analyse the concept of sexual perversion must fail. Priest argues that sexual perversion is an “inapplicable concept”: the presuppositions that would allow us to make sense of the notion have been rightly rejected. Without the theoretical backdrop of an Aristotelian moral teleology, we cannot provide a satisfactory account of sexual perversion, for only such a teleological world-view allows us to give some sense to the idea that a sexual practice might be morally wrong because it is unnatural. Priest surveys accounts of perversion that don’t appeal to any idea of unnaturalness and rejects them—rightly I believe. But, Priest argues, Aristotle’s own moral teleology is part and parcel of his wider views about purpose in nature. This natural teleology has been shown to be explanatorily superfluous. Though some sciences still talk of functions, this can be understood in terms of contributions to evolutionary survival. Though there is considerable disagreement about the details of the right account of function, all versions of this scientifically respectable teleology are morally neutral: it would not follow from the fact that homosexual intercourse does nothing to propagate the agents’ genetic material to future generations that it is therefore morally wrong. Here too I think Priest is right. He also considers what he calls “Aristotelian revivalism” in Roger Scruton’s account of sexual perversion. I think Priest sells Aristotelianism short. I have no interest in defending Scruton’s own understanding of the Aristotelian moral framework nor his particular account of sexual perversion. I shall, however, argue that Aristotelian moral philosophy provides a more useful framework for thinking about these issues than Priest implies, and attempt to defend an account of sexual perversion within the context of this framework. (shrink)

Seeing with Ears, Hearing with Eyes. How Technology Molds Synesthesia Within Us -/- The subject of consideration within this lecture is the contribution of existing scientific discoveries on the visual and musical connection within the perceptual plane. Points of reference are the studies of Amir Amedi, Jacob Jolij and Maaieke Meurs, Harry McGurk, as well as, the works of Iwona Sowińska, Roger Scruton, Oliver Sacks, and a cultural analysis of Joshua Bell’s performance. I will also consider how the senses (...) effect each other, pursuing the diversified reception of vision, which consists of the sense of hearing [sic!], on which I would like to focus attention. -/- Paper structure:  Introduction to key concepts in the fields of research and development,  The visual outlook on hearing,  The aural perspective on vision,  Relationships to related sciences,  Summary of multimedia examples,  An attempt to extend the “techno-view” to the auditory senses within synesthesia. (shrink)

Author refers to theories of mater and form, trying to find a way to establish the material grounds for musical sound. From Aristotle basic definition of physis author turns to Roger Scruton and his doubts whether what listeners hear as music, tone and even sound may be found among the physical things.

This article discusses the views of Immanuel Kant on sexual perversion (what he calls "carnal crimes against nature"), as found in his Vorlesung (Lectures on Ethics) and the Metaphysics of Morals (both the Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre). Kant criticizes sexual perversion by appealing to Natural Law and to his Formula of Humanity. Neither argument for the immorality of sexual perversion succeeds.

is happyness productive? See book by Roger Scruton, "On Pessimism".

Winning essay of the American Society for Aesthetics' inaugural Peter Kivy Prize. Extends Kivy's notion of sonic picturing through engagement with recent work in philosophy of perception. Argues that sonic pictures are more widespread and more aesthetically and artistically important than even Kivy envisioned. Topics discussed include: the nature of sonic pictures; the nature of sounds; what we can (and more importantly, cannot) conclude from musical listening; sonic pictures in film; beatboxing as an art of sonic picturing; and cover songs (...) as sonic pictures. To be published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. (shrink)

In May 2017, my book ‘Conversations on Art and Aesthetics’ appeared. It contains conversations with, and photographic portraits of, ten prominent philosophers of art. They are Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, Arthur Danto, Cynthia Freeland, Paul Guyer, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jerrold Levinson, Jenefer Robinson, Roger Scruton, and Kendall Walton. The book has two main aims. One is to provide a broad and accessible overview of what aesthetics as a subfield of philosophy has to offer. The other is to stimulate new work (...) in this area of research. In this brief paper I’d like to say a bit more about this second objective. Current research is rarely conducted or communicated in the form of conversations, so the question arises: how can a book like mine fit with and feed into a research culture which is very much dominated by the format of the journal article? (shrink)

Introduction to the Spanish translation of "Green Philosophy", by Roger Scruton.

In The Gay Science (1882), Nietzsche heralded the problem of nihilism with his famous declaration “God is dead,” which signalled the collapse of a transcendent basis for the underpinning morality of European civilization. He associated this collapse with the rise of the natural sciences whose methods and pervasive outlook he was concerned would progressively shape “an essentially mechanistic [and hence meaningless] world.” The Russian novelist Turgenev had also associated a scientific outlook with nihilism through the scientism of Yevgeny Bazarov, a (...) character in Fathers and Sons. A century or so later, can we correlate relevant scientific results and the nihilistic consequences that worried these and other nineteenth-century authors? The aversion of empirical disciplines to such non-empirical concepts as personhood and agency, and their methodological exclusion of the very idea of value would make this a difficult task. Recent neuroscientific (MRI) investigations into free will might provide a useful starting point for anyone interested in this sociological question, as might the research results of experimental or evolutionary psychologists studying what they take human beings to be. In this paper, I turn instead to a more basic issue of science. I will question the universality of a principle of identity assumed by a scientific understanding of what it means for anything to exist. I will argue that the essential features of human existence present an exception to this principle of identity and thereby fall outside the grasp of scientific inquiry. The basis of this argument will be an explanation of why it is nonetheless rational for us to affirm personhood, agency, moral values, and many more concepts that disappear under the scrutiny of the sciences. (shrink)

Krzysztof Trzciński, Źródła legitymacji tradycyjnego władztwa we współczesnej Afryce jako przyczynek do lepszego zrozumienia jego roli i fenomenu trwania, "Afryka" 2009, t. 29-30, s. 47-70. Legitymacja należy do kluczowych zagadnień myśli politycznej i jest nierozerwalnie powiązana między innymi z takimi terminami jak państwo, władza, obywatele, poddani, prawa i obowiązki. Pojęcie legitymacji jest niezwykle ważne i być może właśnie z tego powodu jego istota stanowi temat wielu dyskusji. W tym artykule nie będziemy jednak analizować sporów definicyjnych. Ograniczymy się do podejścia, jakie (...) proponuje Roger Scruton, unikając przedstawienia ścisłej definicji. Termin ‘legitymacja’ określa, jego zdaniem, to samo, co pojęcia ‘prawomocność władzy’ bądź ‘prawowite panowanie’. Gdy rządzący dzierżą władzę nie posiadając do tego uprawnienia, wówczas mówimy, że władza jest przez nich wykonywana bez legitymacji. Legitymacja dotyczy relacji między obywatelami (poddanymi) a władzą państwową lub – jak ma to miejsce na przykład w Afryce Subsaharyjskiej – lokalnym władztwem tradycyjnym. Pojęcie legitymacji odnosi się przede wszystkim do tak podstawowych zagadnień jak podporządkowanie się obywateli (poddanych) decyzji władz oraz prawo władzy państwowej (lub tradycyjnej) do ograniczania wolności obywateli (poddanych). Legitymacja była istotnym problemem politycznym na przestrzeni ludzkich dziejów i we wszystkich obszarach świata. Również i dziś stanowi aktualną kwestię. Władza we współczesnych państwach demokratycznych czerpie legitymację z woli elektoratu wyrażonej w wyborach. Nawet w takim wydawałoby się idealnym stanie rzeczy legitymacja niejednokrotnie stanowi przedmiot dyskusji. Seymour Martin Lipset pisze w tym kontekście o ‘szacunkowości’, czy też względności legitymacji i uważa, że ludzie w państwie uznają istniejący w nim system polityczny jako posiadający legitymację lub nie w zależności od tego, czy wartości systemu odpowiadają wartościom przez nich wyznawanym. I tak na przykład, gdy prezydentem demokratycznego państwa zostanie popierany przez nas kandydat, automatycznie uznajemy jego władzę za legitymowaną. Jeśli jednak wybory prezydenckie wygra osoba, której nie darzymy poparciem czy zaufaniem, wówczas zdarza się nam podważać jej legitymację, zwłaszcza gdy została wybrana na urząd w sytuacji niskiej frekwencji wyborczej. W państwach pokolonialnej Afryki problem legitymacji jest daleko bardziej skomplikowany niż w świecie zachodnim. Podczas gdy Max Weber wyróżnił trzy czyste typy prawomocnego panowania (legalne, tradycyjne i charyzmatyczne) w państwie, David Beetham uznał, że typologia ta jest nieadekwatna ze względu na różnorodność rodzajów władzy, które istniały w XX wieku. Pogląd Beethama odpowiada po części sytuacji w Afryce, gdzie w przypadku wielu pokolonialnych państw przetrwały różne lokalne systemy władzy przedkolonialnej (królestwa, sułtanaty, wodzostwa) o legitymacji tradycyjnej, przy jednoczesnym istnieniu na poziomie ogólnopaństwowym panowania legalnego lub quasi-legalnego, mniej lub bardziej zgodnego z państwowym porządkiem prawnym. (shrink)

Legitymacja należy do kluczowych zagadnień myśli politycznej i jest nierozerwalnie powiązana między innymi z takimi terminami jak państwo, władza, obywatele, poddani, prawa i obowiązki. Pojęcie legitymacji jest niezwykle ważne i być może właśnie z tego powodu jego istota stanowi temat wielu dyskusji. W tym artykule nie będziemy jednak analizować sporów definicyjnych. Ograniczymy się do podejścia, jakie proponuje Roger Scruton, unikając przedstawienia ścisłej definicji. Termin ‘legitymacja’ określa, jego zdaniem, to samo, co pojęcia ‘prawomocność władzy’ bądź ‘prawowite panowanie’. Gdy rządzący dzierżą (...) władzę nie posiadając do tego uprawnienia, wówczas mówimy, że władza jest przez nich wykonywana bez legitymacji. Legitymacja dotyczy relacji między obywatelami (poddanymi) a władzą państwową lub – jak ma to miejsce na przykład w Afryce Subsaharyjskiej – lokalnym władztwem tradycyjnym. Pojęcie legitymacji odnosi się przede wszystkim do tak podstawowych zagadnień jak podporządkowanie się obywateli (poddanych) decyzji władz oraz prawo władzy państwowej (lub tradycyjnej) do ograniczania wolności obywateli (poddanych). Legitymacja była istotnym problemem politycznym na przestrzeni ludzkich dziejów i we wszystkich obszarach świata. Również i dziś stanowi aktualną kwestię. Władza we współczesnych państwach demokratycznych czerpie legitymację z woli elektoratu wyrażonej w wyborach. Nawet w takim wydawałoby się idealnym stanie rzeczy legitymacja niejednokrotnie stanowi przedmiot dyskusji. Seymour Martin Lipset pisze w tym kontekście o ‘szacunkowości’, czy też względności legitymacji i uważa, że ludzie w państwie uznają istniejący w nim system polityczny jako posiadający legitymację lub nie w zależności od tego, czy wartości systemu odpowiadają wartościom przez nich wyznawanym. I tak na przykład, gdy prezydentem demokratycznego państwa zostanie popierany przez nas kandydat, automatycznie uznajemy jego władzę za legitymowaną. Jeśli jednak wybory prezydenckie wygra osoba, której nie darzymy poparciem czy zaufaniem, wówczas zdarza się nam podważać jej legitymację, zwłaszcza gdy została wybrana na urząd w sytuacji niskiej frekwencji wyborczej. W państwach pokolonialnej Afryki problem legitymacji jest daleko bardziej skomplikowany niż w świecie zachodnim. Podczas gdy Max Weber wyróżnił trzy czyste typy prawomocnego panowania (legalne, tradycyjne i charyzmatyczne) w państwie, David Beetham uznał, że typologia ta jest nieadekwatna ze względu na różnorodność rodzajów władzy, które istniały w XX wieku. Pogląd Beethama odpowiada po części sytuacji w Afryce, gdzie w przypadku wielu pokolonialnych państw przetrwały różne lokalne systemy władzy przedkolonialnej (królestwa, sułtanaty, wodzostwa) o legitymacji tradycyjnej, przy jednoczesnym istnieniu na poziomie ogólnopaństwowym panowania legalnego lub quasi-legalnego, mniej lub bardziej zgodnego z państwowym porządkiem prawnym. (shrink)

Modern buildings do not easily harmonize with other buildings, regardless of whether the latter are also modern. This often-observed fact has not received a satisfactory explanation. To improve on existing explanations, this article first generalizes one of Ortega y Gasset’s observations concerning modern fine art, and then develops a metaphysics of styles that is inspired by work in the philosophy of biology. The resulting explanation is that modern architecture is incapable of developing patterns that facilitate harmonizing, because such patterns would (...) humanize buildings and modern architecture is a homeostatic property cluster with a dehumanizing motive at its core. (shrink)