Product Description

In a personal view of the subject, critic and thinker Roger Scruton focuses on the ideas and arguments that have attracted him to philosophy, showing how philosophy is relevant not just to intellectual questions, but to life in the modern world. Although Scruton does refer to the great philosophers, particularly to Kant and Wittgenstein who greatly influenced him, he does not attempt to give a comprehensive guide to their arguments. Instead he aims to bring philosophy to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #836544 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'This is a marvellous book which gives back to philosophy the sweep and depth it once had before linguistic analysis reduced it to a study of words and their meaning. Scruton is unafraid to take on the big topics... with imagination and verve.' Jonathan Sacks, Financial Times

Some may declare that God died in the 1960s, but academic and TV personality Roger Scruton will have none of that. Nor does he take kindly to today's 'thought police' who dictate what ideas are acceptable and unacceptable. Such strangulation of thought goes against what makes us human, he says, and that is anathema to a man who has written about philosophy and taught its concepts for much of his life. Here Scruton provides a user-friendly guide for those who would like to try philosophy for themselves but don't know where to start. He begins with an assurance of 'presupposing no knowledge other than that which an intelligent person is likely to possess already'. From there he sets off on an exploration of life's most profound questions, touching on truth, time, freedom, sex and even music. Scruton offers his own beliefs and arguments but does not claim that these are absolute truths. He encourages the reader to think about the subjects from all angles and come to conclusions (or more questions) of their own. Scruton's opinion is that true philosophers ask questions; those who claim to have found all the answers are not so much philosophers as dogmatists. He is especially scathing towards Nietzsche, Posner and Foucault, and expresses annoyance for those who say truth can only be found through science. For Scruton, thinking is the most exacting science of all. Unlike many books on philosophy, this one is stimulating and clear. The questions it deals with may go deep but Scruton turns the process of exploration into an adventure that even a child can follow. He is most enlightening when it comes to the topics of human nature and religion, and the often-quoted tenets that 'truth is relative and freedom an illusion'. Not everyone will agree with Scruton's conclusions but the book is guaranteed to get readers thinking and asking questions - which is what the author intended. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Roger Scruton was professor of aesthetics at London's Birkbeck College 1985-92 and of philosophy at Boston University, Massachussetts 1992-94. He is now editor of the Salisbury Review. His recent books include Modern Philosophy (1996), Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture (1998), Animal Rights or Wrongs (2000) and The Meaning of Conservatism (2001).

Customer Reviews

Interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying
Don't be put off by the title - this book is part of a series of 'Intelligent person's guides to...' (in particular see Mary Warnock's superb guide to Ethics), but instead many readers will be put off by the content. This book aims to provide a lively contrast to dry argument-based philosophy; rather then discussing philosophy it prompts the reader to actually do it. This approach is at first refreshing for anyone who, like myself, originally picked up the book ignorant of philosophy, but rapidly becomes annoying as topics are raised but not dealt with in a satisfactory manner. In particular, any balance between contradictory arguments is lost, and Scruton's own opinions can easily be misinterpreted as philosophy itself. This criticism aside, the book covers a pleasantly surprising range of topics and occasionally even pays lip-service to some of Scruton's favourite thinkers, and while the reader may find that he doesn't really know any more after reading the book than before, the process is enjoyable, and communicates a real joy in philosophy which is all to rare in academic circles. An accessible and interesting introduction, but patchy and incomplete. Most readers would be better off with Nagel's 'What does it all Mean?'

Interesting, but overbearing
I was asked to buy this book fro my first year philosophy course at university, where a lecturer had based a semester around it. She made it abundantly clear that she had picked this because it was sure to create some interesting controversy.

How right she was.

Although it is unrealistic (and in fact would be unwanted) for a book on philosophy to agree with all your ideas, Scruton's book is SO conservative, and so fixed to his ideas, that he finds it impossible to consider other answers to some of the most important questions we ever ask ourselves. He is also at times most overbearing, his pompous style grating on your nerves until you acutally need a break before returning to the volume.
All in all, good at the basics, but too caught up in his own ideas to serve as a useful introduction to philosophy or metaphysics.

Must be read
This is an important and deeply thought-out book that should be read by anyone professing to have a mind. Even those who would be instinctively hostile to Scruton's conservatism owe it to themselves to get to grips with his standpoint fully - if only to be sure that they're not hating a straw man.

One thing that Scruton argues for is for philosophy to help re-infuse the world with meaning, and keep it and our human selves at a safe intellectual distance from all those corrosive views that would demean us: that we're 'nothing but' our genes, or that reductionistic science can dissolve morality, for instance.