Professor Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton is a philosopher, editor, writer, and composer, known for his spirited defence of Western culture. He was named a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum in 2006.

Professor Scruton did undergraduate and doctoral studies at Jesus College, Cambridge and has taught philosophy and aesthetics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, Birkbeck College (University of London), and Boston University, as well as holding visiting posts at the Universities of Princeton, Stanford, Louvain, Guelph (Ontario), Witwatersrand (South Africa), Waterloo (Ontario), Oslo, Bordeaux, and Cambridge. He is most recently visiting professor in philosophy at the University of Buckingham and research professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Virginia.

Scruton also founded the Conservative Philosophy Group, which helped to change the climate of opinion in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. He is also the co-founder of the Town and Country Forum, devoted to encouraging cross-party discussions over the divide between urban and rural people. He has been an active and decorated supporter of democratic and anti-communist movements in Lebanon and Eastern Europe (particularly the Underground University in the Czech Republic and Slovakia).

He has published more than thirty books, both fiction and non-fiction. His non-fiction covers topics including philosophy and aesthetics, political and cultural commentary, criticism, and country life. Among them are The Meaning of Conservatism, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture, and News from Somewhere.

From 1982–2000 he was editor of the Salisbury Review. He has written columns for The Times, the Financial Times, and a wine column for the New Statesman. He was founder and director of Claridge Press from 1982–2004, when it became part of the Continuum Publishing Group. He has also presented two full television documentaries.

He has composed two operas, Violet (premiered in 2005) and The Minister (premiered in 1994).

Selected Publications

• An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture (2000)

• An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy (1999)

• Beauty (2009)

• Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged (2007)

• Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life (2005)

• I Drink, Therefore I Am: A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine (2010)

• News from Somewhere: On Settling (2006)

• The Aesthetic Understanding: Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture (1983)

• The Meaning of Conservatism (1980)

• The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought (2007)

• The Roger Scruton Reader (2009)

• The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat (2002)

• Understanding Music: Philosophy and Interpretation (2009)