Mark Dooley Boeken

A candid and personal insight into the life and work of the philosopher and writer Roger Scruton, by his intellectual biographer, Mark Dooley.

Mark Dooley presents an engaging reinterpretation of Kierkegaard, positioning him as a forerunner to Jacques Derrida's ethical and political ideas. Challenging the view of Kierkegaard as an advocate of individualism, Dooley argues for his vision of an "open quasi-community," which resonates with Derrida's recent work. The book explores the political implications of Kierkegaard's religious concepts, suggesting that true responsibility in politics calls for justice for the marginalized. This analysis invites readers to reconsider Kierkegaard's relevance in contemporary thought on religion, ethics, and politics.

Moral Matters: The Case for Conservative Philosophy is Mark Dooley's defence of intellectual conservatism in what he called 'an age of liberalism'. For Dooley, liberalism is not, as is often claimed by its proponents, a philosophy of freedom, but one of homelessness and rupture from settled conventions. It is a philosophy of individualism that repudiates community and compromise in exchange for egoism and alienation. In contrast, he sees conservatism as a philosophy of love - love of all those things which comprise the social, moral, religious and cultural patrimony. It is a philosophy that looks upon the world, not as something to be remade on a whim, but as a gift to be cherished in the name of 'absent generations'. If liberalism is a 'dictatorship of relativism', conservatism is an ethics of virtue which promotes true liberty rooted in responsibility. At a time when the moral destiny of mankind is at stake, Moral Matters presents a convincing case for conservative philosophy as an antidote to alienation and a key to personal happiness.

An updated edition of this intriguing portrait of Roger Scruton and his philosophy.

Sir Roger Scruton (1944–2020), britský konzervativní filosof, estetik, politolog, spisovatel a hudebník, je v českém prostředí dobře znám, a to nejen ze svých četných knih. Byl velkým přítelem naší země – již v době komunismu zde organizoval tajné bytové vzdělávací semináře, po roce 1989 pomáhal s přechodem od totality k demokracii především v oblasti vysokoškolského vzdělávání. Kniha rozhovorů, které s ním vedl spisovatel Mark Dooley, přináší podrobný a intimní příběh jeho osobního i profesního života a představuje tohoto skvělého člověka v novém světle. Úvod k českému vydání napsal Petr Pithart.