Bryan Magee
Bryan Edgar Magee (/məˈɡiː/; 12 April 1930 – 26 July 2019) was a British philosopher, broadcaster, politician and author, best known for bringing philosophy to a popular audience.
For other people with similar names, see Brian Magee (disambiguation).
Bryan Magee
12 April 1930
26 July 2019 (aged 89)
Revival of transcendental idealism[1]
Early life[edit]
Born of working-class parents in Hoxton, London, in 1930, within a few hundred yards of where his paternal grandparents were born, Magee was brought up in a flat above the family clothing shop, where he shared a bed with his elder sister, Joan.[2] He was close to his father but had a difficult relationship with his abusive and overbearing mother.[3][4] He was evacuated to Market Harborough in Leicestershire, during World War II, but when he returned to London, much of Hoxton had been bombed flat. Magee was educated at Christ's Hospital school on a London County Council scholarship. During this formative period, he developed a keen interest in socialist politics, while during the school holidays he enjoyed listening to political orators at Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park, London, as well as regular visits to the theatre and concerts.[3][5]
During his National Service he served in the British Army, in the Intelligence Corps,[3] seeking possible spies among the refugees crossing the border between Yugoslavia and Austria. After demobilisation he won a scholarship to Keble College, Oxford, where he studied history as an undergraduate and then Philosophy, Politics and Economics in one year.[6] His friends at Oxford included Robin Day, William Rees-Mogg, Jeremy Thorpe and Michael Heseltine. While at university, Magee was elected president of the Oxford Union. He later became an honorary fellow at Keble College.[7]
At Oxford, Magee had mixed with poets as well as politicians and in 1951 published a volume of verse through the Fortune Press. The publisher did not pay its writers and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves – a similar deal had been struck with such writers as Dylan Thomas and Philip Larkin for their first anthologies. The slim volume was dedicated to the memory of Richard Wagner, with a quote from Rilke's Duino Elegies: ... das Schöne ist nichts als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen ("... beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear").[8] Magee said later: "I'm rather ashamed of the poems now, although I have written poems since which I haven't published, which I secretly think are rather good. It has always been a dimension of what I do."[3] (Later he would also publish fiction, including a spy novel To Live in Danger in 1960 and then a long work Facing Death. The latter, initially composed in the 1960s but not published until 1977, would be shortlisted for an award by The Yorkshire Post).[9][2][3]
In 1955 he began a year studying philosophy at Yale University on a postgraduate fellowship.[10][11] He had expected to hate America but found that he loved it. His deep admiration of the country's equality of opportunity was expressed in a swift series of books, Go West, Young Man (1958), The New Radicalism (1963) and The Democratic Revolution (1964).[11] He taught philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford for a period but was not enamoured of the analytical philosophy then in vogue there.[4]
Bryan Magee
British
Labour Party (1958–1982)
Social Democratic Party (1982–1983)
Broadcaster and writer[edit]
Interviews with philosophers[edit]
Magee's most important influence in popular culture were his efforts to make philosophy accessible to the layman.
In 1970–1971 he presented a series for BBC Radio 3 entitled Conversations with Philosophers.[14][15][3] The series took the form of Magee in conversation with a number of contemporary British philosophers, discussing both their own work, and the work of earlier 20th-century British philosophers. The series began with an introductory conversation between Magee and Anthony Quinton. Other programmes included discussions on Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore and J. L. Austin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the relationship between philosophy and religion, among others. Extracts of each of the conversations were printed in The Listener shortly after broadcast.[16] And extensively revised versions of all the discussions would be made available in the 1971 book Modern British Philosophy.[14][3] Karl Popper would appear in the series twice and Magee would soon after write an introductory book on his philosophy that was first published in 1973.[17]
In 1978 Magee presented 15 dialogues with noted philosophers for BBC Television in a series called Men of Ideas. This was a series that, as noted in The Daily Telegraph, "achieved the near-impossible feat of presenting to a mass audience recondite issues of philosophy without compromising intellectual integrity or losing ratings" and "attracted a steady one million viewers per show."[2] Following an "Introduction to Philosophy", presented by Magee in discussion with Isaiah Berlin, Magee discussed topics like Marxist philosophy, the Frankfurt School, the ideas of Noam Chomsky and modern Existentialism in subsequent episodes. During the broadcast run, edited shorter versions of the discussions were published weekly in The Listener magazine.[18] Extensively revised versions of the dialogues within the Men of Ideas series (which featured Iris Murdoch)[19] were originally published in a book of the same name[20] that is now sold under the title of Talking Philosophy.[15] DVDs of the series are sold to academic institutions with the title Contemporary Philosophy.[21] Neither this series nor its 1987 'sequel' are available for purchase by home users but most of the episodes are freely available on Youtube.[22][23]
Another BBC television series, The Great Philosophers, followed in 1987. In this series, Magee discussed the major historical figures of Western philosophy with fifteen contemporary philosophers. The series covered the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, among others, including a discussion with Peter Singer on the philosophy of Marx and Hegel,[24] and ending with a discussion with John Searle on the philosophy of Wittgenstein.[25] Extensively revised versions of the dialogues were published in a book of the same name that was published that same year.[26] Magee's 1998 book The Story of Thought (also published as The Story of Philosophy) would also cover the history of Western philosophy.[11]
Between the two series, Magee released the first edition of the work he regarded as closest to his "academic magnum opus": The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (first published in 1983, substantially revised and extended, 1997).[27][28] This remains one of the most substantial and wide-ranging treatments of the thinker and assesses in-depth Schopenhauer's influence on Wittgenstein, Wagner and other creative writers. Magee also addresses Schopenhauer's thoughts on homosexuality and the influence of Buddhism on his thought.[27]
Bibliography[edit]
Books[edit]
(Some available for loan on Open Library)