What does Scruton himself mean by “left” or “left wing”? While the book is full of various short-hand summaries of what Scruton means, one or two might help grasp Scruton’s understanding. Scruton is not necessarily using the term “left” or “left-wing” pejoratively, as he claims that the thinkers he examines in the book all use the term to describe themselves. His target is generally the world of 20 th century philosophy - mainly in the UK and European continent, although in one chapter he treats certain left-wing thinkers in the United States. This is polemics at its fiercest, as Scruton attempts to take 20 th century left-wing thought to task. Scruton is clear at the beginning that this is not a “word-mincing book” (p. Scruton currently resides in the UK, in a piece of land in the country which he and his wife dub “Scrutopia.” He is currently Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC. The current book reworks the material, and deletes certain sections. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands is a re-working of a 1985 book by Scruton, Thinkers of the New Left. Roger Scruton is a philosopher of the first rank, and is known as a leader of sorts of a kind of high-brow British conservatism (and of conservatism more generally).
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