Reflecting on Roger Scruton

STOP PRESS: Our full programme for this term is now available here. As you will see, our next session (11 February, 6pm) will be Lord James Drummond Young on the courts' practical application of natural law. (More details will follow.) 

Following up on the meeting 28 January 2015, I've posted above the video of the lecture by Roger Scruton that Dr Elizabeth Drummond Young mentioned where Scruton talks about the concept of oikos (home).

Elizabeth also mentioned two other books that she thought particularly helpful in her understanding of Scruton. These were:

Green Philosophy (details here)

Sexual Desire (details here)

A lot of the discussion afterwards focused on to what extent Scruton is trapped within a particular tradition of values (ie the English cultural tradition), Dr Ian Thompson at one stage describing him as a 'neo-Hegelian'. (An article on Hegel's philosophical views is here.) I'm sympathetic to such a critique although I'd prefer to describe Scruton as a Burkean. (An article on the philosophy of Edmund Burke is here.) In essence, the question is (from the perspective of Catholic social theory) whether Scruton sees God as really existing apart from the tradition carried by a nation, and whether the teachings of the Church can judge that tradition rather than being judged by it. From that Catholic point of view, I think Scruton underestimates the authority of the Church and its understandings over the national tradition, and, moreover, the way that both our supernatural and natural ends are not simply expressions of human history, but realities apart from it. To quote from an interview:

By the time I was 16 or 17, I had lost what faith I had,” he tells me. “I am very much persuaded by Kant’s view that while we yearn towards the transcendental, we can have no positive conception of it,” he continues, outlining the argument he made in the 2010 Gifford Lectures (published as The Face of God). “The problem remains that religion depends on an act of affirmation beyond which reason can warrant.” A philosopher’s way of saying there’s no way to scientifically prove the existence of God.
So what’s the point of religion? “My faith – such as it is – is simply the old Anglican one. We don’t really know, but we trust, and we build a community out of that trust and we recognise as a central feature of that community the ultimate Christian sacrifice.”
His position is summed up by his place at the organ – halfway between the pews and the pulpit. “I can shut myself off and choose whether or not to listen to what’s going on. I don’t have to sing the hymns; I play them instead. My form of religious experience is very much that of an intellectual seeing things from a legacy of doubt.” He sympathises with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in whom he sees a similar “metaphysical doubt”.

(Full interview from Telegraph here.)

Scruton is, I think, an important figure for Catholics interested in the Church's teaching on politics and society (as well as many other areas!) to grapple with. Few other contemporary thinkers have investigated the riches of the western cultural tradition and its place in the modern world with such philosophical intelligence and sensitivity. However, his agnostic Anglicanism underestimates both the institutional authority of the Catholic Church and the power of reasonable reflection on human nature to go beyond our cultural inheritance.

Handout from session is available here.