Bryan Edgar Magee was a noted British broadcasting personality, politician, poet, and author, best known as a popularizer of philosophy.
He attended Keble College, Oxford where he studied History as an undergraduate and then Philosophy, Politics and Economics in one year. He also spent a year studying philosophy at Yale University on a post-graduate fellowship.
Magee's most important influence on society remains his efforts to make philosophy accessible to the layman. Transcripts of his television series "Men of Ideas" are available in published form in the book Talking Philosophy. This book provides a readable and wide-ranging introduction to modern Anglo-American philosophy.
Covering every major philosopher from Plato to Popper, via Saint Augustine Locke and Nietzsche, explore these great thinkers in their historical context and learn the influences that shaped their lives and work.
An essential guide to this fascinating subject. 2,500 years of Western philosophy explored.
In this updated guide to philosophy, Professor Bryan Magee expertly guides us through the history of ideas and thinking, tracing over 2,500 years of Western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to modern thinkers.
Discover what philosophy is, how philosophers have questioned the fundamental principles underlying all knowledge and existence and address life's big questions, such as 'What is being?' and 'Can the existence of God be proved?'
If you don't yet know your Hobbes from your Hume, if you're still looking to distinguish your stoic from your sceptic, then this is absolutely the book for you. Pitched at the curious beginner with perhaps a few philosophy titles already under their belt, this provides a huge amount of information and covers some challenging ideas, but does so without ever veering off into convolution and inaccessibility. It seems to get just about everything right: it's well-written, well-structured, and well-presented.
Beginning with the early ancient Greek philosophers, Magee takes the reader right through to 20th century analytic and existential philosophy, tackling all the key figures and schools of thought along the way. The great rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) and empiricists (Locke, Hume, etc) and key figures and movements from French and German philosophy are all covered. Books of this sort sometimes have a tendency to feel quite disjointed. Not so this one: each chapter flows smoothly to the next, and if you read it cover to cover, you'll find yourself with a good sense of the development of ideas through the generations.
Presentation of this title is, as we've come to expect from DK, excellent. There are informative side panels, quotations, and an abundance of illustrations including well-chosen and often remarkably apt period artwork. All help to provide a useful sense of context for each key figure and idea. As an extensive and accessible overview of the history of philosophy, Bryan Magee's book completely achieves what it sets out to do, and more importantly, reading it was a real pleasure.
Exactly what I was looking for: a general overview of western philosophers and movements. Occasionally more heavy on the biography than the philosophy, but gave me what I needed to get back into the game and decide which (western) philosophers I want to read next.
This is a beautiful edition with illustrations that provide a context to the philosophy of each period. Not only that, it encourages further thought, which is what I was looking for. Although it is a book to read in stages, you do get a sense of how each thinker built on previous philosphies, elaborated on them, altered them, and gained insights from them. You also find out which philophers have a writing style that is accessible, should you decide to proceed further. Bryan Magee himself is very skilful in clarifying the most abstruse philosophical thought and drawing parallels.