{"title":"Roger Scruton","description":"\u003cp\u003eRoger Scruton's works invite readers into profound explorations of \u003cem\u003ephilosophy, politics, and culture\u003c\/em\u003e, blending rigorous analysis with a distinctive voice. His writing navigates themes of human nature, conservatism, and aesthetic experience, offering thoughtful reflections that challenge and enrich contemporary discourse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom philosophical treatises to insightful studies on music and art, Scruton's books engage with the enduring questions of meaning and morality. Readers can expect a collection that honours intellectual depth and the pursuit of timeless truths across multiple fields.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"modern-philosophy-by-roger-scruton-9781844131068","title":"Modern Philosophy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAnyone interested in philosophy should read this book\u003c\/em\u003e — Nicholas Bagnall, Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRoger Scruton is one of the most widely respected philosophers of our time, whose often provocative views never fail to stimulate debate. In \u003cem\u003eModern Philosophy\u003c\/em\u003e, he turns his attention to the whole of the field, from the philosophy of logic to aesthetics, and in so doing provides us with an essential and comprehensive guide to modern thinking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eConsidered by many to be the best philosophical primer since Bertrand Russell's \u003cem\u003eThe Problems of Philosophy\u003c\/em\u003e, this book is a must for both the student and the general reader.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000685412588,"sku":"9781844131068","price":80.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/16123923482844.jpg?v=1763296946"},{"product_id":"on-human-nature-by-roger-scruton-9780691183039","title":"On Human Nature","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA brief, radical defence of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defence of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroes to Darwin and Wittgenstein.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe book begins with Kant's suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say \"I\"—by our sense of ourselves as the centres of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUltimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today's most fashionable ideas about our species.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"NewSouth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000693539052,"sku":"9780691183039","price":43.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1817533482434.jpg?v=1763297951"},{"product_id":"the-soul-of-the-world-by-roger-scruton-9780691169286","title":"The Soul of the World","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Soul of the World\u003c\/em\u003e, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends the experience of the sacred against today's fashionable forms of atheism. He argues that our personal relationships, moral intuitions, and aesthetic judgments hint at a transcendent dimension that cannot be understood through the lens of science alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTo be fully alive—and to understand what we are—is to acknowledge the reality of sacred things. Rather than an argument for the existence of God or a defence of the truth of religion, the book is an extended reflection on why a sense of the sacred is essential to human life—and what the final loss of the sacred would mean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn short, the book addresses the most important question of modernity: what is left of our aspirations after science has delivered its verdict about what we are? Drawing on art, architecture, music, and literature, Scruton suggests that the highest forms of human experience and expression tell the story of our religious need, and of our quest for the being who might answer it. This search for the sacred endows the world with a soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEvolution cannot explain our conception of the sacred; neuroscience is irrelevant to our interpersonal relationships, which provide a model for our posture toward God; and scientific understanding has nothing to say about the experience of beauty, which provides a God's-eye perspective on reality. Ultimately, a world without the sacred would be a completely different world—one in which we humans are not truly at home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYet despite the shrinking place for the sacred in today's world, Scruton says, the paths to transcendence remain open.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"NewSouth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000818286828,"sku":"9780691169286","price":49.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/c76db16ab1eeb0c54cd838a050f3079b.jpg?v=1773004485"},{"product_id":"the-ring-of-truth-by-roger-scruton-9780141980720","title":"The Ring of Truth","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA magnificent book by a famous author on perhaps the greatest of all musical works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWagner's Ring of the Nibelung is one of the greatest works of art created in modern times, and has fascinated critics and devotees for over a century and a half. \u003ci\u003eThe Ring of Truth\u003c\/i\u003e is an exploration of the drama, music, symbolism, and philosophy of the Ring from a writer whose knowledge and understanding of the Western musical tradition are the equal of his capacities as a philosopher.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eScruton shows how, through musical connections and brilliant dramatic strokes, Wagner is able to express truths about the human condition which few other artists have been able to convey so convincingly. For Wagner, writes Scruton, the task of art is to 'show us freedom in its immediate, contingent, human form, reminding us of what it means to us. Even if we live in a world from which gods and heroes have disappeared we can, by imagining them, dramatize the deep truths of our condition and renew our faith in what we are.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47363141763308,"sku":"9780141980720","price":30.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14609183482238.jpg?v=1772917127"},{"product_id":"wagners-parsifal-by-roger-scruton-9780141991665","title":"Wagner's Parsifal","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe last book by one of Britain's most prominent public intellectuals is a superbly insightful and moving exploration of Wagner's last opera.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWagner's Parsifal\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of Parsifal, the 'pure fool, knowing through compassion', who has been called to rescue the Kingdom of the Grail from the sins that have polluted it. The Grail is a symbol of purity in a world of lust and power, but although Parsifal is the culmination of Wagner's lifelong obsession with the religious frame of mind, the redemption sought by his characters is far from the Christian archetype. For Wagner, redemption occurs in this life, when compassion prevails over enslavement, and purity replaces spiritual pollution.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHis music ties together suffering and contrition, sin and forgiveness, downfall and redemption in an inextricable knot, healing the fractures and uniting the warring elements in human life in a way that is clear, convincing and uncanny. More than any other of his works, \u003cem\u003eParsifal\u003c\/em\u003e expresses in music a depth of feeling for which we do not have words.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis short but penetrating book, by a writer who was uniquely both a leading philosopher and musicologist, shows us how Wagner achieves this profound work. It explains the story, its musical ideas, and their coming together into a sublime whole which gives us the musical equivalent of forgiveness and closure. There are few writers who can so enhance our understanding of one of the greatest works in western music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47417736462572,"sku":"9780141991665","price":30.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/A1h_YTefQzL._SL1500.jpg?v=1774307856"},{"product_id":"the-meaning-of-conservatism-by-roger-scruton-9781587315039","title":"The Meaning of Conservatism","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst published in 1980, \u003ci\u003eThe Meaning of Conservatism\u003c\/i\u003e is now recognised as a major contribution to political thought, and the liveliest and most provocative modern statement of the traditional \"paleo-conservative\" position. Roger Scruton challenges those who would regard themselves as conservatives, and also their opponents.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eConservatism, he argues, has little in common with liberalism, and is only tenuously related to the market economy, to monetarism, to free enterprise, or to capitalism. It involves neither hostility toward the state, nor the desire to limit the state’s obligation toward the citizen. Its conceptions of society, law, and citizenship regard the individual not as the premise but as the conclusion of politics. At the same time, it is fundamentally opposed to the ethic of social justice, to equality of station, opportunity, income, and achievement, and to the attempt to bring major institutions of society – such as schools and universities – under government control.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIts root conceptions are those of loyalty, allegiance, community, and tradition. The conservative vision of society is one in which autonomous institutions and private initiative predominate, and in which the law protects the shared values that bind the community together, rather than the rights of those who would blow the community apart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47428289691884,"sku":"9781587315039","price":31.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781587315039.jpg?v=1774497179"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/roger-scruton.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}