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I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine Paperback – November 25, 2010

by Roger Scruton (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 138 ratings
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We are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health and also the rival opinion that any more than a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin. Whether or not good for the body, Scruton argues, wine, drunk in the right frame of mind, is definitely good for the soul. And there is no better accompaniment to wine than philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn not only to drink in thoughts but to think in draughts.

This good-humoured book offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap that is written about wine today and a profound apology for the drink on which civilisation has been founded.

In vino veritas.

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  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Continuum
  4. Publication date
    November 25, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    5.75 x 1 x 8.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1441170677
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1441170675
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sir ROGER SCRUTON is a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy and politics, including Kant and An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy. He is widely translated. He is a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches in both England and America and is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C. He is currently teaching an MA in Philosophy for the University of Buckingham.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Continuum; 0 edition (November 25, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1441170677
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1441170675
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1 x 8.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 138 ratings

About the author

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Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton

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Roger Vernon Scruton, FBA, FRSL (/ˈskruːtən/; born 27 February 1944) is an English philosopher who specialises in aesthetics. He has written over thirty books, including Art and Imagination (1974), The Meaning of Conservatism (1980), Sexual Desire (1986), The Philosopher on Dover Beach (1990), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), Beauty (2009), How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism (2012), Our Church (2012), and How to be a Conservative (2014). Scruton has also written several novels and a number of general textbooks on philosophy and culture, and he has composed two operas.

Scruton was a lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, from 1971 to 1992. Since 1992, he has held part-time positions at Boston University, the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and the University of St Andrews. In 1982 he helped found The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, which he edited for 18 years, and he founded the Claridge Press in 1987. Scruton sits on the editorial board of the British Journal of Aesthetics, and is a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Scruton has been called "the man who, more than any other, has defined what conservatism is" by British MEP Daniel Hannan and "England’s most accomplished conservative since Edmund Burke" by The Weekly Standard.

Outside his career as a philosopher and writer, Scruton was involved in the establishment of underground universities and academic networks in Soviet-controlled Central Europe during the Cold War, and he has received a number of awards for his work in this area.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Pete Helme (http://www.rogerscruton.com) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
138 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Richard B. Schwartz
5.0 out of 5 stars RS in his most incisive (and impish) posture
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2021
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This charming little book by Roger Scruton is a must-read for every serious wine drinker. It is divided into two sections, the first dealing with RS’s wine experiences, his favorite bottles and their place within his life, and the second dealing with a philosophy of wine. Some of the philosophy deals with traditional epistemological and metaphysical issues, but then it becomes more cultural and anthropological. At base, wine is about tradition in the deepest sense. It is about our transition from hunter/gatherers to farmers and the manner in which the cultivation of wine brought us together in social, ritualistic fellowship, which is to say that wine ultimately is about religion, specifically the Eucharist.

Because of the importance of its functions and the depth and breadth of the meaning of the word terroir, RS has the basis for a discussion of practical issues. Why, e.g., is it foolish and wrong to use screwcaps rather than corks? Why, e.g., is it foolish and wrong to create Reislings with higher than normal alcohol content?

The book ends with a set of recommendations concerning the wine that should be consumed when one is reading particular philosophers. This is the most enjoyable (if not the most searching and philosophic) section of the book, because it opens the door to RS’s summarizing the pros and cons of individual thinkers and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses with no holds barred. In other words, it gives him the opportunity to take off the gloves and be as impish as he desires.

Potential readers should know that RS goes out of his way to find viticultural virtue in unexpected places and also to thrash and bash with abandon. One example: the Australian wine industry is not going to be pleased with this book. A second example: the Missouri wine industry will be pleased with his ruminations on the Norton varietal.

Highly recommended.
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J. S. HILL
5.0 out of 5 stars Wine from a philosophers viewpoint
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2023
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Roger Scruton is an intellectual who wove wine into the fabric of his life. Or – perhaps he wove life in to the fabric of his wine. I accompanied this book with a Cabernet from BV in Napa, a Pinot Grigio from Barone Fini in northern Italy. There is probably no other book that does wine pairings with philosophers. Although the humor of the author is apparent throughout, it also offers a serious cultural look at the importance of wine. This was a fun read that I highly recommend.
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Pseudo D
4.0 out of 5 stars Vive La Bourgogne
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2018
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"Wine too has a part to play in presenting what the intellect cannot compass. That first sip of a fine wine stirs, as it makes its way downwards, the rooted sense of my incarnation. I know that I am flesh, the by-product of bodily processes which are being brought to a heightened life by the drink that settles within me. But this very drink radiates the sense of self: it is addressed to the soul, not the body, and poses questions that can be formulated only in the first-person case, and only in the language of freedom: 'what am I, how am I, where now do I go?' It invites me to take stock of my situation, to wrap up the day's events, and to take those decisions which were waiting on this moment of calm. In other words, it presents, in a single experience, the doubled-up nature of the person who drinks. He may not have the words to describe this experience: and anyway words will never suffice. Through wine we know, as through almost nothing else that we consume, that we are one thing, which is also two: subject and object, soul and body, free and bound.

This knowledge contained in wine is put vividly to use by the Christian Eucharist. Christ, holding the cup to his disciples, declares that 'this is my blood of the New Testament, shed for you and for the remission of sins'. The blood in question is not the physical stuff that goes by that name, but something intimately bound up with the 'I' of Christ. The bread just eaten at the altar-the body of Christ-is made conscious by the wine. Bread and wine stand to each other as body to soul, as subject to object, as the thing IN the world to its reflection at the edge. I do not wish to imply that only a Christian can understand the mystery of wine, any more than it is only a Christian who can understand the Eucharist."

This passage captures the high level of reflection from the conservative philosopher Roger Scruton. He shows an impressive knowledge of many topics, and specifically he knows a heck of a lot about wine and has a lot of passionate opinions about it. He has a lot of opinions about everything, from romantic love to classical music, and often expresses them in a witty way. The title is from the Bruce's Philosopher's Song of Monty Python, who often offered liberal humor that was loved by many conservatives for various reasons. Scruton likes to talk about various great philosophers and then adds the opinions of his horse! Besides the Eucharistic reflection above, there's good stuff from the Hindu notion of atman, Eliot's intersection of the timeless with time, and C.S. Lewis' gift love and need love from the Four Loves, which also relates well to Jean-Luc Marion.

One of Scruton's key ideas is that wine ties us with history and geography. His favorite, like mine, is France, and perhaps Burgundy and Bordeaux above all, which is cool because my ancestors were from Burgundy. Like faith and music, wine puts us in touch with the communion across the centuries and the oceans. But while France has the finest pays, the countryside, it is actually Florence, Firenze, that is delightfully pre-modern, and my favorite city.

The appendix is perhaps the best part of the book, where Scruton offers a brief, probably 20 to 30 page (oddly, the Kindle version stopped numbering the pages here) history of philosophy along with which wine to drink with each. His opinions are always offered authoritatively but sometimes with little supporting evidence. He really has something against Husserl, who influenced many fine Christian thinkers like Edith Stein and Dietrich von Hildebrand. What I found weird was that Scruton's descriptive analysis of experience sometimes looks like phenomenology! Favorites include Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Hegel and Wittgenstein. Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics is preferred to the rather boring Metaphysics, where Plato's Laws is ridiculously long and requires a good wine. The story about Avicenna made me laugh out loud (hint: he died in an interesting way). Descartes (who provided the title, with his I think therefore I am) is rightly called the most overrated. Berkeley is treated hilariously (drink tar water!) while Hume offered wisdom despite bad epistemology and Locke is important for politics, as Ed Feser and Pat Deneen recently explained.

Nietzsche is mostly to be pitied because he had little actual power in real life, where Schopenhauer's problem is that he preferred beer. Russell took British thought in the wrong direction by overanalyzing the word "the" instead of "think", "I" and "am", but his math is still worthwhile. Heidegger broke up Aristotle's being into being for others, being towards death, being there, etc. Leo Strauss is also treated humorously because he was welcomed by America, and within a couple of generations bashed and blamed for everything. But the real villains in I Drink Therefore I Am are the nihilism of Sartre and in a different way Foucault, and the bland social justice of Rawls and Martha Nussbaum.

In terms of theology, after the critique of Heidegger he quoted a turgid passage of Karl Rahner and added "he can go on like this for 500 pages". There certainly is a literary critique to be made of Rahner (his own brother said he should be translated into German!), but it doesn't amount to an engagement with his ideas in their substance. Even Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, who broke away from Rahner in many respects, knew not to dismiss him lightly.

Scruton is so passionate about all his opinions, including the opinion that wine is the best (at the very end he finally bothers to bash rose'!) and those who don't drink it are missing life. Of course there are good reasons that people don't drink, namely being alcoholic or having the genetic tendency toward alcoholism. Scruton mentions the Inuit as a culture that didn't develop fermentation and thus has a hard time processing alcohol. His description (phenomenology!) of addiction and its effects is right on, but his understanding of its causes appears limited and simplistic. The French Canadians (whose blood has a small amount of First Nation) are descended obviously from the French, so there should be no genetic problem, and yet alcoholism is more common in Quebec (including New York/Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine) than the old country. While Scruton doesn't seem to appreciate adequately the problem of alcoholism, his brief treatment of its solution is fine. Food is not wine, of course, but it is analogous, and Leon Kass' The Hungry Soul is a fine companion to this book. Scott Hahn's recent Fourth Cup relates well to Scruton's notion of the Last Supper with Christ taking up the god of Dionysus or Bacchus.

Let's close with the words of Hilaire Belloc's In Praise of Wine.

So my friend
Let not your cup desert me at the end...
And sacramental, raise me the Divine:
Strong brother in God and last companion, Wine.
9 people found this helpful
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N. May
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2014
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Roger Scruton is one of philosophy's hidden treasures. The man seems incapable of writing a boring sentence, and his observations are unfailingly intelligent and deeply insightful. For some reason, almost every reviewer feels obliged to begin his characterization of Scruton with the observation that he is a "conservative" philosopher. This is true - wonderfully so, in this reviewer's opinion - but Scruton's political and intellectual leanings never interfere with the cogency of his arguments (though they no doubt inform them, as they do in all of us). His "Modern Philosophy" is the single best introduction to philosophy I've ever read. (If he would but add a brief appendix on basic propositional and quantifier logic, it would contain the equivalent of an undergraduate degree in philosophy - and then some.) His "I Drink, Therefore I Am," while not a formal primer in philosophy, is a deeply philosophical book, steeped in a love of thinking, tradition, and (of course) wine, with the author's wit and erudition on display on almost every page. Never ponderous, the book is a sheer delight to read and, later, to reflect on, hopefully with a good circle of friends and an artful bottle (or two!) of vino, to help the conversation along (what he calls 'virtuous drinking', an activity always (or almost always) undertaken with friends). Cheers.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Maxim
4.0 out of 5 stars meant to read and savored as the subject of of wine
Reviewed in Canada on April 2, 2023
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Superbly well written and covers a wide range of thoughts, ideas and other writings on, about or related to wine. Take care of your copy. They are hard to get and you will reread it more than once.
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Paulo Jorge Ferreira
4.0 out of 5 stars Bom artigo
Reviewed in Spain on April 19, 2024
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melton
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book as are all Scrutons writings.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2022
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Liked all of it. A drinking man’s think.
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RAS
4.0 out of 5 stars I drink therefore I am
Reviewed in France on May 17, 2018
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C'est plus une approche philosophique du vin, à confronter avec le livre de Tony Edwards ("The Good News About Booze") qui est plus une revue scientifique et médicale de la question. Roger Scruton est un des plus grands philosophes anglais, par ailleurs pas toujours apprécié pour ses tendances conservatrices affirmées. "I Drink, Therefore I Am," est un livre profondément philosophique, à déguster comme un bon vin.
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Ben Shepherd
4.0 out of 5 stars "To arrive where we started"
Reviewed in Canada on February 15, 2019
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Sir Scruton takes to polymerizing the wisdom of pagan Bacchus, the Christian Saints, and the enlightenment of Kant, Spinoza, and Hume all with a glass of Vino in his hand. He convincingly brings us the connection between the reverence that exists within a bottle of wine; like a cultural achievement, not unlike the beauty brought Wagner or Beethoven; while reminding us that great wine is all that remains of Noble France. He entwines the greatest of Vinum with the same truths of the Logos and Reason itself.. “We idle and sensual creatures” “bear witness in works of charity & forgiveness.”

For wine lovers and tormented thinkers, you’ll find something for you. Not so, for the layman.
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