Praxis Circle Contributor Roger Scruton (1944-2020) was an internationally-recognized British philosopher, author, and professor. Knighted in 2016, Scruton published over fifty nonfiction and fiction books. His extensive nonfiction work involves almost every topic imaginable from history to wine, but centers on Western analytical philosophy, political philosophy, and aesthetics (art, music, architecture). In fiction, he wrote several creative works, including novels, short stories, poems, and three libretti, two he set to music.
Praxis Circle interviewed Roger Scruton because of his commanding knowledge of Western philosophy, his highly developed philosophical and theological anthropology, and his extensive service to Western civilization, Britain, freedom, and education.
Scruton graduated from Cambridge University in 1965, where he also received his M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy in 1967 and 1972, respectively. He taught as a Professor or Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College (London), Boston University, the Institute for the Psychological Sciences (Arlington, VA), Princeton University, Blackfriars Hall Oxford, the University of St. Andrews, and the Buckingham University (London).
Scruton lived on Sunday Hill Farm in Wiltshire, England and was a professor at Buckingham University, where he taught an MA program at the London campus. He was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and had been most recently been appointed head of Great Britain’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. His wife Sophie and his college-aged children still reside at Sunday Hill Farm and are continuing his summer school, Scrutopia, and other special projects related to his extensive work.
