If you want to discover the pleasures of philosophy, then read Roger Scruton's books. In addition to this title, I recommend "The Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy" and "Modern Philosophy." Scruton has an uncanny ability to convey even the most difficult concepts with clarity and grace. His "Short History of Modern Philosophy" is worth reading for two reasons: 1) it is a model of fine expository writing; and 2) it is an accessible overview of modern philosophy that will provide a foundation for further study of the central philosophers. I wish Scruton's books had been available when I was reading philosophy as an undergraduate.

Roger Scruton provides an excellent introduction and survey (500 pages plus notes). The best part of the book is that it is organized topically; so, rather than a series of short biographical studies, you get an overview of an issue. For example, there is an excellent discussion of what Frege, Russell, Meinong & Strawson were trying to accomplish.

Scruton is also funny: "[Ayer's] Language, Truth and Logic . . . should be read if possible, provided it is read quickly and innatentively. The details of the argument are preposterous . . . ."

There is too much to recommend Scruton to the beginner, so I won't attempt to summarize them. I will say that this book is the best survey I've ever read.

The complaints of complexity are legion in philosophy- it's not a subject for the average man by its very nature. Scruton does as well as any man living or dead in making philosophy understandable to the novice. The reviewers below simply do not understand that this comes with the territory by definition: philosophy is exegesis at the limits of the human grasp. I previously thought there was no way to make it as accessible as this without sacrifising too much: Scruton proved me wrong. You get farther with less hard work under Scruton than any philosopher since Nietzsche. And I know of no one who can make Kant instantly intelligable.

I disagree with Scruton a good amount of the time, and it makes not one iota of difference: this is a little masterpiece. Even the scattered criticism is wrong. Scruton has taken on left philosophers head on more than once (he has a book on the subject). For the most part, he does an excellent job with the quick hack and slash job he does here. The line about anyone asking you to believe that nothing is true is asking you not to believe them is a little rhetorical gem. I don't think it's hard to dismiss the Sausser and Derrida clique outright and then get on to the job of doing philosophy. Maybe that is my fault for not being smart enough- I don't think being able to spot the inconsistancy of an argument from the first sentence means that I have to continue debating the issue.

Either way, the hardest and most worthwhile philsophers extant get the long shrift here, which is precisely how any book purporting to be a survey should work. This book is for everyone: for the beginner looking to uderstand and for the veteran who likes clear and cogent argument. Buy this book.

Modern philosophy, in the narrow sense that Roger Scruton defines it, is not for the faint hearted. Like much of contemporary science, the technical, jargon bound nature of the subject bars all but the most dedicated from tackling its primary sources. Hence the need for books such as this. As far as philosophical primers goes, this is a good one. Scruton wisely breaks his text down into short easily digestible chapters. Eschewing the usual chronological approach he bases each chapter around a particular theme, bringing the ideas of philosophers from different historical periods together in an enlightening fashion. All the big theories are here from Descartes cogito, to Kants transcendental idealism, to Wittgensteins private language argument. Like Bertrand Russell, Scruton has an admirably clear and economical prose style (and an equally dry sense of humour) which enables him to give us non-philosophers some idea of what, for example, Kants Critique of Pure Reason is on about, and why it is such an important book. Modern Philosophy, however, is much more than just a historical compendium of philosophies greatest hits. Scruton spends a good deal of the book dealing with the current theories and controversies that exist within the subject, so that one comes away with a good idea of the state of contemporary philosophy and where it's heading.

On the downside Scruton, a self-professed conservative, displays the usual Right-wing hysteria when it comes to "discussing" the ideas of the Left. Throughout the text he never mentions the Left other than to disparage it. By the end of the book he can no longer contain himself and dedicates an entire chapter to vilifying the whole socialist philosophical tradition. In this bizzare chapter, luridly entitled "The Devil", he lets it all hang out, attacking Marx and Co. with an evangelical fervour that has to be read to be believed. In a nutshell, Scruton maintains that all left-wing philosophy, from Marx to Foucault, is the work of the devil, while (no surprises here) his own conservative values are equated with those of the Almighty himself: the immutable Law that must be obeyed! This Manichaean view of the world is puzzling given that early in the book Scruton claims that one of the main tasks of philosophy is to teach people to resist such vulgar reductionism. Still it's comforting to know that even super intellectuals like Roger Scruton are prey to the same ideological prejudices as the rest of us. The unwillingness of the Right to engage with the Left - both politically and philisophically- in any form of meaningful debate is highlighted by this sort of caricatured nonsense. It is salutary reminder to us, however, that an intimate knowledge of the entire Western philosophical canon does not necessarily lead to an enlightened (i.e. tolerant) political viewpoint. Consider another "Man Who Knew Everything", the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who at one point during the Cold War advocated a first-strike policy against the Soviet Union. Like Russell, Scruton is also a man of logic and reason, defining philosophy exclusively as a discipline which "pays scrupulous attention to arguments, the validity of which it is constantly assessing". Logic and reason are powerful tools no doubt, but as history has all to often demonstrated, they don't always guarantee a logical and reasonable outcome (remember that even Einstein voted for the Bomb). We need other ways of looking at the world. In this context, the writings of both Modernism and Post-Modernism, which Scruton arrogantly dismisses as nonsense, provide a valuable corrective to what John Ralston Saul has termed "The dicatorship of reason in the West". Nevertheless, one ends up admiring the man. Scruton is one of the few thinkers from the Right who says what he means, and means what he says - such intellectual honesty is rare these days. To sum up, "Modern Philosophy" is the best primer on traditional philosophy I have read and, despite the above qualifications, remains an essential read.

Also Recommended:

A Short History of Modern Philosophy by Roger Sruton: less imposing and easier to read than Modern Philosophy.

A few books that Roger Scruton would NOT recommend!

Ideology an Introduction - Terry Eagleton

The Condition of PostModernity - David Harvey

Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond - Douglas Kellner

The Malsbary translation may be the problem to this otherwise respected work. His syntatical structures, often omitting verbs, makes for difficult reading. Maybe it just German philosophical writing, which tends to the obtruse.

The exposition is not clear. Many passages have to be re-read for comprehension. The message does not flow, but spurts and starts in a jarring manner.

Pieper has many salient points to make, all of which should be used in dialogue with Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class." It's not that they are the same wavelength, but the differences are telling all the same.

This isn't a book I'd buy (but I did), but get through a library. It's not a book florid with gems of wisdom.

Pieper begins with a common (and ironically ancient) human insight that people today have lost touch with their inner, spiritual lives, and something must be done before we become soulless drones. His solution is leisure, that contemplative and calm state that produces joy in the greatness of a full life. The highest expression of this leisure is the religious festival. I won't divulge any more of Pieper's philosophy; it is much better understood and appreciated by reading his well-written text. Sometimes Pieper soars and takes the reader with him into the loftiest reaches of man's soul and intellect, other times it seems like nothing more than the intellectual masturbation of a prentious, old-school European academic. Still, it is beautifully and succinctly written, which is very refreshing, and you could easily read it in a week. Especially recommended for the Catholic intellectual.

The excellent Malsbury translation of Pieper's famous work brings together many of the themes found in other works of the author. For instance, leisure or stillness, is not to be thought of as leisure in the contemporary sense. Leisure is to be thought of in a framework of an teleology which is a contemplation of ends, or last things. Since man is made for union with God, human work is not seperate from this end. Today, the work of man is an end in itself, and philsophical anthropology and culture suffers. Pieper shows how this is a reorientation from the classical and scholastic world view which shared a common vision of anthropology as man seeking those things which are above. This book is a must read for all those who think modern culture is suffering from an identity crisis.

This book is VERY short, you can easily read it in an hour. For me it was only useful in determining whether or not to read other, more complete books on the same subject. I snapped it up at six bucks figuring any book at that price was a bargain, but now that I have whipped through all 54 pages, it actually seems kind of expensive.

The actual content was clear and useful. But it would be better presented as a single chapter in a broad introductory text covering many philosophers.

A lucid and highly readable account of Spinoza. I found Roger Scruton's work here highly enjoyable and extremely instructive. A pleasurable and moving experience.

Scruton's "Spinoza" is an excellent introduction. Although Spinoza is not in vogue, Scruton reminds us of why it is important to study "past masters." I recommend that anyone that intends to read Spinoza's "Ethics" first read Scruton's introduction. By reading Scruton first, the reader will have a much more enjoyable and fulfilling experience.

Roger Scruton's "An Intelligent Guide to Philosophy" is a fantastic book with a tremendous amount of interesting things to say but which at times is very hard to understand.

The first chapter "Why?" delves into that word which gives rise to philosophy. We can answer that question by giving a cause, a reason (which might also be a cause) or something that makes an action intelligible, according to Scruton. Science gives causes of the first kind while philosophy, in the way the world currently is, "attempts to justify the other kinds of 'Why?' - the 'Why?' which looks for a reason, and the 'Why?' which looks for a meaning" (pg 25). This plays into a constant theme of Scruton's, "If this book has a message, it is that scientific truth has human illusion as its regular by-product, and that philosophy is our surest weapon in the attempt to rescue truth from this predicament" (pg 8).

The next three chapters "Truth", "The Demon" and "Subject and Object" deal with truth, language and skepticism about the external world (and maybe some other subjects as well). This addresses Descartes's evil demon and the skepticism about the external world that has plagued modern philosophy since Descartes's "Meditations on First Philosophy" (1630).

After dealing with these metaphysical/epistemological subjects, Scruton turns to questions of human nature and ethics in chapters 5 through 10. He has some very interesting things to say about what distinguishes humans from animals (language is important) and about the crucial need that religion has addressed for human beings. I can't resist: ".... the rational being lives in a condition of metaphysical loneliness" (pg 89). "The 'first person plural' of the religious rite overcomes this isolation and creates, for a brief but necessary moment, the sense that we stand together outside nature, sharing the subjective viewpoint which otherwise we know only as 'mine'" (pg 90). The chapter on morality has interesting things to say but I'm not sure it is philosophically sound. There is a chapter on "Sex" where he brings to bear the subject/object distinction that he has used since the beginning and which is very interesting.

All in all, this book has, in my opinion, alot of wisdom and truth in it, alot of material in a small amount of space, but it is also difficult to follow at times (i.e. the chapters on "Time", "Morality" and "Music"). In the end, I couldn't put the book down because Scruton gets so much right, is surely brilliant and has clearly studied these subjects long and hard. And I also sympathize with his general aim (quoted above).

------ Greg Feirman

This was an wonderfull book. I have no clue what blessings were bestowed on modern philosophy to warrant our having a man who delves into the inscrutibile genius of Kant be such a goddamned good writer and thinker as Scruton, but the fact remains; Scruton's prose sparkles like bubbles in champagne.

The philosopher known of as Roger Scruton is exactly what philosophy needs to make itself relevant and worthwhile- a man who can write English like a novelist. This is surely the Tom Wolfe of Philosophy, much to the common readers benefit.

Not only is his writing superb (especially for a philosopher), but I detect the tell tale signs of a genius in his work. Having read his other opuses to the field, I have detected enough theoretical creativity combined with the much needed pure doses of good common sense that I am commanded by my conscience to tell the reader that no matter how much I disagree with Mr. Scrutons theories, I see Scruton as being one of the names in that will fuel the next centuries political conservatism.

This was an wonderfull book. I have no clue what blessings were bestowed on modern philosophy to warrant our having a man who delves into the inscrutibile genius of Kant be such a goddamned good writer and thinker as Scruton, but the fact remains; Scruton's prose sparkles like bubbles in champagne.

The philosopher known of as Roger Scruton is exactly what philosophy needs to make itself relevant and worthwhile- a man who can write English like a novelist. This is surely the Tom Wolfe of Philosophy, much to the common readers benefit.

Not only is his writing superb (especially for a philosopher), but I detect the tell tale signs of a genius in his work. Having read his other opuses to the field, I have detected enough theoretical creativity combined with the much needed pure doses of good common sense that I am commanded by my conscience to tell the reader that no matter how much I disagree with Mr. Scrutons theories, I see Scruton as being one of the names in that will fuel the next centuries political conservatism.

'The Aesthetics of Music' is a very in-depth examination of music and the points where it converges on society and politics. I'm a big fan of Roger and hope that these kinds of writings will help him win back some ground from the ill informed and idiotic books that fill the 'postmodern cultural theory' sections of bookshops and libraries. It is a much more specialised book than many of his recent writings on Foxhunting, English Culture and Global Politics but is similarly passionate and interesting throughout.

For anyone who wants a general understanding of the philosophy behind Scruton's aesthetic arguments his book 'An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture' contains a complete argument from which the argument of this book is drawn but is much shorter and more direct.

That some readers (and reviewers) will object to Scruton's cultural critique is to be expected; after all, he doesn't shrink from the cultural, political, idealogical and moral implications of his carefully-argued aesthetic. Though you don't have to agree, you'll find his arguments engrossing and his knowledge of music formidable. The journey through his encyclopedic knowledge alone is worth the read. The basic idea that music powerfully both reflects and influences the soul and thus society is certainly not new (it's part of ancient wisdom). Scruton's contribution is to look at the processes, reasons and effects in the light of modern philosophy. Mercifully, he writes in an accessible prose. Though not essential to following his argument, a basic knowledge of music theory and ability to parse musical notation will add considerably to the enjoyment of this important book.

No one seriously interested in Music will regret reading this. Why does music move us? Scruton helps us to an even stronger appreciation and enjoyment of Music. (Also look out for his new book on Foxhunting.)

Scruton takes his readers on a journey through aesthetic theory and tries in every sense to apply them directly to architecture. By using theories from Kant, Marx, Freud, Hume, Alberti, Ruskin and many others on topics such as constructivism, and literary theory, Scruton tries to find the essence of architecture. Has architecture an essence?

The book seemed to have many topics that were mentioned but not neccessarily completed which led to (at times) difficult reading and lost thought. The book also was biased in the sense that it praised the past and was unsure of the present and future of architecture.

For those that have an inherent interest in aesthetics, architecture (particulary classical architecture), and classical thinking this is a good book to read.

This is an extraordinarily well-written and energetic tome of small frame but great stature. Scruton, the Enblish conservative that he is, explains why conservatism is not a theory to be applied but a doctrine to be worked out. The dogmatics of conservatism, a phrase he uses, is that all of us are by nature social beings before we are individuals; indeed, our own individualsim is discovered only in confrontation with the "other". This social animal, known as man, has accured many rites, rituals, ceremonies, institutions, and habits that indoctrinate him before he even gets going. Of course, humans are free to modify and change these institutions, but it is alway thus -- modification and change of existent institutions, ceremonies, and the like. The conservative wants to preserve those rites, ceremonies, and institutions that have been tested by time, not for the sake of preservation, but for the sake of their timeless success.

With the Sixties, all these assumptions were turned on their head; everything was challenged, and much that was good and noble was like the proverbial baby thrown out with the bath water. For conservatives, it is sufficient to demonstrate that these instutions, tradtions, and histories worked; the fact that they worked is dogmatic, not theoretical or possible, but true and sure. Naturally, some of the assumptions and instutitions at the time of the Sixties were in need of reform, but for the most part, these reforms have begotten us worst institutions than preceded them.

Some of the subjects of which Scruton addresses are authority and allegiance, constitution and state, law and liberty, property, alienated labor, autonomous institutions, and the Establishment. He addresses all the familiar gripes by the Far Left in an intelligent and able manner. By the book's end, I couldn't tell whether Scruton was a "conservative" or what these days goes by "communitarian." In many ways, the notions overlap, and those wanting a thorough-going understanding of either "concept" will enjoy reading this short, but fulsome, book.

Scruton's title is somewhat misleading - he's written, not so much a guide to modern culture, as an extended meditation on its history, beginning with Religion, and continuing on through the Enlightenment, Modernism, and Post-Modernism. As you might expect from this philosopher, he does not approve of the trend - "art is the consolation prize for our loss of religion."

The question is, what is to be done about culture, and why should it matter? Scruton's book is engaging and provocative, but short on answers. It is perhaps worth reading as a brief history of how Western culture lost its way. But those who are hoping for an incisive diagnosis, and a clarion call to arms, will come away disappointed.

This is a great guided tour through the last few centuries of culture. Scruton appears to be an advocate of natural law (the notion that the good will become obvious to the enquiring mind)--believing that the doorway to this epiphany is through high culture. However, he has to go back a century or so to find good examples. It seems that there is nothing worthwhile happening these days. Scruton has a major Wagner thing going on -- they are on the same page as far as the whole twilight of the gods idea goes.

Unfortunately, Wagner is dead and we are left all alone.

A fascinating tour through the last three centuries of culture. This book gave me my first real grasp of what modern and postmodern labels are all about. Scruton appears to be an advocate of natural law (that which is good becomes obvious to the enquiring mind) perceived through the lens of high culture, music, art etc. However, he tends to go back in time to find relevant examples. As usual with this sort of diatribe there is nothing really good happening in our day. Scruton has a major Wagner thing going on here. His twilight of the gods philosophy goes so well together with Wagner its not surprising. Unfortunately, Wagner is dead. So what is a person to do?