University of St Andrews
The 2010 Gifford Lectures
Tuesday 20 April 20 to Thursday 6 May 2010
THE FACE OF GOD
Roger Scruton
Science has a unique authority among thinking people today, and its popularisers have presented a picture of the human condition from which God is absent. Evolutionary psychology and neuroscience are invoked in order to explain our deepest and most precious emotions – the love of God included – as ‘adaptations’, ‘hard wired’ in the human cortex. The earth is seen as an ecosystem, of which we are a part, as transient in our tenure as every other organism. And our social motives are rewritten as ‘reproductive strategies’, the origin of which lies not in the love between self-knowing individuals but in the mindless impulse of their genes.
This picture of the human condition leaves out what is most important, namely the relation between freely choosing persons, who see each other face to face. By understanding the world in the way of popular science we fortify those destructive tendencies in our culture which are wiping away the face of the world. These lectures will be devoted to showing that this is so, and to pointing to the remedy.
Through the series of six lectures some of the most fundamental philosophical, ethical and human issues will be addressed including those of religion and science, of freedom and determinism, of self and other, of the meaning of art, architecture and music, and of sacrifice and scapegoating.
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Roger Scruton is one of Britain’s best known and most distinguished philosophers and public intellectuals. He is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, where he was also a research fellow of Peterhouse, and is a barrister of the Inns of Court, He has held Professorships at the universities of London and Boston and Visiting positions at Princeton and most recently at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a fellow of the British Academy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Roger Scruton’s very many publications include Art and Imagination (1974), The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979), The Politics of Culture (1981), The Aesthetic Understanding (1983), Kant (1983), Sexual Desire (1986), Spinoza (1987), The Philosopher on Dover Beach (1989), Modern Philosophy (1994), Animal Rights and Wrongs (1996), The Aesthetics of Music (1999), Death Devoted Heart (2004), Culture Counts (2007), Beauty (2009), Understanding Music (2009) and a volume of autobiography Gentle Regrets (2006).
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The lecture series will be delivered in School III of St Salvator’s Quad, North Street, St Andrews. Each lecture will begin at 5.15pm, and following the first there will be a public reception in Lower College Hall. Lectures are free and open to the public as well as to staff and students of the University.
The dates and titles of the lectures are as follows:
Tuesday April 20th. Lecture 1.
The view from nowhere
Thursday April 22nd. Lecture 2.
The view from somewhere
Tuesday April 27th Lecture 3.
Where am I?
Thursday April 29th.
Lecture 4.
Dancing with masks
Tuesday May 4th. Lecture 5.
The face of the earth
Thursday May 6th. Lecture 6.
The face of God
In addition to the lectures themselves there will further opportunities for discussion with Roger Scruton of the themes and ideas presented in the series. The time and location of these will be announced later.
Also, there will be a concert performance of Roger Scruton’s chamber opera The Minister presented by soloists from St Andrews Opera and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, with Ensemble 2021 conducted by Michael Downes. This will be at the Byre Theatre on Wednesday 21 April at 10.15pm. The performance will be preceded by a short introductory talk by Roger Scruton. Tickets for this event cost £5.
For the month of his stay Professor Scruton will also be a visiting fellow in the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs.