The thesis put forward by the British philosopher, Roger Scruton (born 1944) in The Uses of Pessimism seems simple: false hope together with an optimism that is unfounded and unscrupulous are the cause of the most harmful conflicts of our times. Political conflicts, institutional and financial crises, unjustified pedagogic notions, non-consensual town planning, etc., are some of the issues that the author analyses with the help of specific historical examples. Before referring to some of these issues, I shall (...) describe the scheme of reasoning Scruton uses to put this book together. The Uses of Pessimism is divided into twelve chapters, seven of which are devoted to analysing different fallacies. In this work the author analyses arguments he considers to be fallacies. This fact is important as the book’s chapters explicitly enumerate all the fallacies Scruton refers to in the book: The First-Person Future; The Best Case Fallacy; The Born Free Fallacy; The Utopian Fallacy; The Zero Sum Fallacy; The Planning Fallacy; The Moving Spirit Fallacy, and The Aggregation Fallacy. (shrink)

Emphasizing the continuity between his moral and aesthetic doctrines and the metaphysical basis in which they rest, the author explores Kant's relation to Leibniz and Hume, and his attempt to construct a philosophy which was neither rationalist nor empiricist, and could display the limits of human understanding; he shows that Kant was not only a master of philosophical criticism, but the greater defender of the objectivity of human knowledge, in both the scientific and the moral spheres.

A modern philosopher and author of Modern Philosophy presents a useful, refreshing guide for "doing" rather than "studying" philosophy, making the subject accessible and real to the layperson. 10,000 first printing.

Roger Scruton is Britain's best-known intellectual dissident, who has defended English traditions and English identity against an official culture of denigration. Although his writings on philosophical aesthetics have shown him to be a leading authority in the field, his defence of political conservatism has marked him out in academic circles as Public Enemy Number One. Contrary to orthodox opinion, however, Roger Scruton is a human being, and Gentle Regrets contains the proof of it - a quiet, (...) witty but also serious and moving account of the ways in which life brought him to think what he thinks, and to be what he is. His moving vignettes of his childhood and later influences illuminate this book. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by:Art and Politics in Roger Scruton’s Conservative Philosophy by Ferenc HÖRCHERD. N. ByrneHÖRCHER, Ferenc. Art and Politics in Roger Scruton’s Conservative Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. vii + 404 pp. Cloth, $129.99The intellectual legacy of Sir Roger Scruton defies the conventional wisdom that conservatism is a mood or sensibility rather than a systematic body of ideas. Then, as Hörcher indicates, Scruton (...) was never a particularly conventional thinker. Against the current that equated intellectualism with political critique, Scruton espoused traditionalism, community ahead of individualism, and order against pluralism. Against the current as well, he took his reflections to the court of public opinion rather than to the halls of academe. (shrink)

The deepest beliefs’ about personal identity whose consequences Unger seeks to draw out are the beliefs of those who already share his theoretical convictions; and his pain-avoidance’ experiments show nothing unless one already assumes those convictions. If there is a risk’ that I may not survive a brain operation even though I know exactly which chunks of brain will be removed and replaced, that shows that I am a separate thing from my body and brain, about which the latter provide (...) normally reliable, but still fallible evidence. (shrink)