Roger Scruton Reader

The Roger Scruton Reader is the first comprehensive collection of Scruton`s writings, spanning a period of thirty years. It gathers selections from some of his earliest works such as The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979) to his most recent Culture Counts (2007). The book also includes a good number of unpublished essays. It is made up of five sections- the last section of all contains some of Scruton`s most pugilistic pieces on Dawkins and on The Iraq War. Scruton holds Burkean political views and his book The Meaning of Conservatism was a response to the growth of liberalism in the Conservative party. At all times he is concerned to shift the right way from economics towards moral issues such as sex education and censorship laws. But he has in fact written on almost every aspect of philosophy always in prose which is accessible and written with pellucid clarity. He has grave intellectual doubts about much contemporary continental philosophy, reserving special objections to Foucault, Althusser and The Frankfurt School whilst holding Kant in particularly high regard. Scruton argues that religion is both necessary and helpful though he admits that it is difficulty to prove the truth of religious statements.