About
Roger Scruton is currently Research Professor for the Institute for the Psychological Sciences where he teaches philosophy at their graduate school in both Washington and Oxford.
He is a writer, philosopher and public commentator. He has specialised in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture. He engages in contemporary political and cultural debates from the standpoint of a conservative thinker and is well known as a powerful polemicist. He has written widely in the press on political and cultural issues.
Roger Scruton’s most recent books are England: an Elegy (Conitnuum, Books, 2000), an attempt to give identity to the idea of England and a tribute to its values and institutions; Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde (Oxford University Press, 2003), an analysis of the musical and spiritual meaning of Wagner’s work; News from Somewhere: On Settling (Continuum Books, 2003), an evocative account of the author’s attempt to put down roots in rural Wiltshire; A Political Philosophy (Continuum Books, 2006), a thoughtful response to the development and decline of western civilization, The West and the Rest (ISI Books, 2001), an analysis of the values held by the ‘West’ and how they are distinct from those held by other cultures. Gentle Regrets (Continuum, 2006) and On Hunting (Random House, 1998) are two autobiographical works. 2007 sees the publication of Culture Counts: Faith and Healing in a World beseiged (Encounter Books 2007) and a third edition of A Dictionary of Political Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) which provides a concise and comprehensive collection of definitions for political thought and processes.
Full CV
Education: High Wycombe Royal Grammar School, 1954-1961
Jesus College Cambridge: 1962-65 and 1967-1969
Inner Temple, London: 1974-76.
Degrees and diplomas:
B.A. Cambridge 1965 in Moral Sciences (=Philosophy), double first.
M.A. Cambridge 1967.
Ph. D. Cambridge, in philosophy, with thesis on aesthetics, 1972.
Bar Part 1, Inns of Court, London, 1975 (Struben Prize, Profumo Prize, second in order of merit).
Bar Part 2, Inns of Court, London 1976 (called to the Bar 1978).
Honorary Degrees:
Honorary Doctorate, Adelphi University, New York, 1995
Honorary Doctorate, Masaryk University, Brno, 1997
Other Honours:
Academic Medal, University of Helsinki, 1989
Fellow, European Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995
lst June Prize, City of Plzen, 1996
Medal for Merit, First Class, Czech Republic, 2000
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 2003.
Ingersoll-Weaver Prize for Scholarly Letters, 2004.
Academic Career:
Research Fellow, Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1969-71.
Lecturer, subsequently Reader and Professor of Aesthetics, Dept. of Philosophy, Birkbeck College, London, 1971-1992
Professor of Philosophy and University Professor, Boston University, 1992-95.
Research Professor, Institute for the Psychological Sciences (2005 onwards)
Business career:
Founder and Director of Claridge Press Ltd., 1987 - 2004.
Co-founder and director of Central European Consulting Ltd, 1989 - 2004. (Small firm of Government Relations consultants, with offices in Warsaw, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest and Kiev.)
Co-founder of, and consultant for, Horsell’s Farm Enterprises, public affairs consultancy and diversified farm 1999 - present.
Journalism
Freelance writer and journalist, starting in 1974 or thereabouts.
Editor of The Salisbury Review, 1982-2001.
Voluntary Work:
Co-founder and trustee of The Jan Hus Educational Foundation, working now in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. (1980- present)
Co-founder and trustee of the Jagiellonian Trust, working in Poland and Hungary (now defunct, since no longer needed). (1982-89)
Founder and trustee of the Anglo-Lebanese Cultural Association, working for reconciliation between the Lebanese sects (now defunct, on account of Syrian & Hizbullahi occupation). (1987-95)
Board member of the Civic Institute in Prague. (1990-present).
Publications:
I have published more than 30 books nearly all of which are in print and many have been translated.
Art and Imagination (1974)
The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979)
The Meaning of Conservatism (1980, second edition 1984, 3rd edn. 2000)
The Politics of Culture and Other Essays (1981)
Fortnight’s Anger (a novel) (1981)
A Short History of Modern Philosophy (1982, second edition 1995, 3rd edn. 2001)
A Dictionary of Political Thought (1982, second edition 1996, third edition 2007)
The Aesthetic Understanding (1983, new edition 1997)
Kant (1983, new edn., 2001)
Untimely Tracts (1985)
Thinkers of the New Left (1986)
Sexual Desire (1986)
Spinoza (1987, new edn. 2002)
A Land Held Hostage (Lebanon and the West) (1987)
The Philosopher on Dover Beach and other essays (1989)
Francesca (a novel) (1991)
A Dove Descending and other stories (1991)
Xanthippic Dialogues (1993)
Modern Philosophy (1994)
The Classical Vernacular: architectural principles in an age of nihilism (1995)
Animal Rights and Wrongs (1996, third edn. 2000)
An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy (1996)
The Aesthetics of Music (1997)
On Hunting (1998)
An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture (1998, new edn. 2000)
Spinoza (1998)
Perictione in Colophon (2000)
England: an Elegy (2001)
The West and the Rest (2002)
Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (2004)
News from Somewhere: On Settling (2004).
Gentle Regrets (2005).
A Political Philosophy (2006)
Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged (2007)
I have also published many articles, both refereed for academic journals and commissioned for non-academic journals. Some of these have been anthologized.
Other literary and creative work:
Poems, stories and pamphlets have been published here and there. I have also written three libretti, two of which I have set to music, the first having secured several performances (a one-act chamber opera called The Minister). The second, a two-act opera called Violet, based on the life of Violet Gordon-Woodhouse, was performed at the Guildhall School of Music on Nov. 30th and Dec 1st 2005, and widely and favourably reviewed in the national press. I have edited or co-edited several collections of papers.
Academic and Editorial Positions:
I am currently Research Professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Washington. In 2006 I was invited as part of the James Madison program at Princeton to teach a course on ‘conservative philosophy’ offered jointly through the politics and philosophy departments.
I am on the editorial board of the British Journal of Aesthetics, The Salisbury Review, Arka (Kraków), and <openDemocracy.net>; I am also an (unpaid) research professor at Buckingham University, where I give advice and assistance in the development of the philosophical side of their curriculum.
I have held visiting positions at Princeton, Stanford, Louvain, Guelph (Ontario), Witwatersrand (S. Africa), Waterloo (Ontario), Oslo, Bordeaux, Cambridge and elsewhere, and have been invited to give lectures in many universities in Europe, America, Canada and Australia.
Research Interests:
I have always worked between disciplines, while at the same time attempting to develop my particular philosophical stance. Currently I am very interested in the philosophy of music, and have just written a book on Wagner’s Tristan, published by OUP, in which I try to bring philosophical and musical analysis together in deciphering the meaning of that extraordinary work. I am so frequently called upon to write about political and social matters that I have been writing about political philosophy too.
I write a regular column on wine for The New Statesman in Britain, and a regular column on cultural matters for The American Spectator. I am well known in American academic circles, and have recently appeared in print in The American Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, Harpers, and National Review.
- “There are few more valuable thinkers in Britain – or indeed, the world – today. His vilification and rejection by the academic establishment is disgraceful. In comparison with him, most of his critics are intellectual pygmies. Both left and right should be grateful to have such a man to sharpen and define the issues. And philosophers should be grateful that he has placed their subject at the very centre of current affairs. Perhaps Scruton’s greatest contribution is his living demonstration of the truth that without philosophy we are nothing.” Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times
- Agent
- Roger Scruton's agent is: Caroline Michel, William Morris Agency, 52-53 Poland Street, LONODN W1F 7LX. Tel: +44 (0)20 7534 6800. E-mail: cmichel@wma.com