
Philosopher Bryan Magee remains wonder-struck by the ultimate questions - ehudla
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/04/even-old-age-philosopher-bryan-magee-remains-wonder-struck-ultimate-questions
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haZard_OS
I read Magee's book Confessions of a Philosopher some years ago and it was
agonizing. Magee's personal bitterness was so pungent and so awkwardly colored
his thoughts on philosophical topics that I found myself struggling to finish
the book.

Of all the books on philosophy I have read, that book by Magee was easily the
most off-putting.

~~~
iorrus
I thought it was a fantastic introduction to Western Philosophy.

One of the top 5 books I recommend to people who have an interest in
philosophy but no academic background in the area.

~~~
copperx
What are the other 4?

~~~
iorrus
This is an extremely personal question. I have _extreme_ biases, I personally
favour:

Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer.

German Idealism/The Fate of reason by Fredrick Beiser.

Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by Glenn Magee

Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense by Allison

Plato: Complete Works by John Cooper is good

The Paidea series by Jaeger is amazing as is the four volume collection by
Giovanni Reale if you're interested in ancient philosophies (like me)

\-----------

The 'phenomenological' school is considered important.

Making Sense of Heidegger by Sheehan

Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy by Hass

However I think most true Western thought is to be found in the great works of
literature. Ovid/Dante etc. try reading Howard Blooms work "The Western
Canon".

Personally I find most western philosophy quite turgid.

~~~
adjkant
At the Existentialist Cafe by Bakewell I think is the best catch-all for
phenomenology in many ways despite being part historical rather than full
philosophy. Would highly recommend even if one is familiar with the usual
suspects featured in it.

~~~
woodandsteel
Agreed, it's a wonderful book.

------
ehudla
His book /Men of Ideas/ is a set of conversations with leading philosophers
(among them Searle, Chomsky, Quine), accessible to non experts. I read it as a
kid and whenever I happen to revisit it I find just as inspiring. It seems to
be out of print, though the videos from the BBC show are ironically on
youtube,

/The Great Philosophers/ in which prominent philosophers discuss the major
figures in the canon of Western philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant,
etc.) is also enticing, though less than /Men of Ideas/.

------
intralizee
I think he would find the philosophy on eternal reoccurrence and determinism
helpful. I’m somewhat an atheist and find the two calming around existence &
death. I wonder how so by his imagination of Einstein was rooted on his work
or the ideology that god doesn’t roll dice.

~~~
solipsism
You think a person who steeped himself in philosophy his entire life is
unfamiliar with eternal recurrence (not "reoccurrence") and determinism?

No. Such people are bound to die restless and unfulfilled. There's a class of
people who _need_ to know the answers to _all_ questions. It strikes me as a
sort of ADD (I mean it in the non-technical "I am not a shrink" way). I agree
with the article that the answers to many questions are unattainable or
unknowable.

The trick as an atheist is to find peace with that. Some even satisfy their
natural drive toward spiritualism with it.

~~~
Koshkin
Indeed - philosophy is similar to theology in that both have unattainable
goals: _Philosophers look for answers to questions for which there are no
answers; theology studies that which does not exist_.

~~~
Satam
I'm often left a bit baffled and frustrated when atheists start off their
arguments with coherent and interesting thoughts only to end, what could've
been the start of a productive discussion, with snarky and childish remarks.

I, for one, dabble in these questions out of genuine and innate curiosity and
I believe others do too. Isn't it then counterproductive to deal in absolutes
when the only thing we can be certain of is that we are still quite too
ignorant to answer those ultimate questions?

Maybe I am reading too much into your "theology studies that which does not
exist", but, again, remarks like these are really off-putting. It is already
almost impossible to find discussions in this area that take an exploratory
and open-minded approach, and I'd hope that at least forums like these could
be free of that.

~~~
solipsism
Sounds like you're expecting everyone to see eye to eye with you. The person
you're responding to expressed how he or she sees things. The only person who
seems to be trying to cut off certain lines of conversation is you.

~~~
Satam
I don't think you're being fair here. Although it is possible that the person
did not write the comment in the disingenuous way in which I perceived it, I
am not willing to regard him as so naive.

Importantly, it is not the opinion itself which I find off-putting - it's the
way in which it is conveyed. It was neither insightful nor did it encourage
any meaningful discussion... No, I'd go further: consciously or unconsciously
its only purpose was to reaffirm the author's pre-existing convictions and to
put down those of others.

I also understand why my comment could come off as trying to cut off certain
lines of conversation as well, but the only reason why I am even getting
frustrated about this is because I want to have MORE of those honest
conversations about these seemingly controversial topics; it doesn't matter to
me which way they lead me.

I believe that the "ultimate" questions have value in them that is not
necessarily tied to them being answered, at the very least in the same way the
exercise is good for one's body - I hope you would agree here as well.
Unfortunately, most of the time, it is quite hard to find balanced online
discussions which would bring an exploratory and open mindset to these
questions; instead, they're usually quickly bombarded with dogmatic responses
- an example of which I'm now ranting about.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Theology is generally the study of the dogma of your chosen religion. Assuming
any of the field is based on truth requires you to already believe what the
religion says, as "a long time ago this guy said this" is not a convincing
argument. Almost everyone will find this true, as even if they believe it for
their chosen religious theology they generally don't for all the others.

The "ultimate questions" are the realm of philosophy.

~~~
Satam
Although there is no question that a large part of the religious dogma is
straight out false, it seems to me that, knowing how many things we still have
no understanding of, it would be just as unproductive to outright dismiss _all
of it_ as false.

But, again, my issue is not with the dismissal - I'm completely fine with the
idea that people might come to that conclusion and I'm open to the idea
myself. My issue is with the cheap jabs that are not even honest expressions
of one's feelings.

My criticisms might seem strange and uncalled-for if one only considers this
instance in isolation, but it keeps happening, again and again, and throughout
many different types of media. Just recently I was reading Sam Harris' book;
it's quite small and a fun read at times, yet it quickly became a chore to get
through, as it is full of those irrelevant cheap-shots. The thing is, in the
right place, in the right context, those remarks could be interesting,
however, when misplaced like that, they end up coming off as someone simply
having a chip on their shoulder.

I consider it really unfortunate that it seems that the atheist side, whose
thoughts I'm most interested in hearing, fallbacks to this strategy quite too
often. And thus, instead of a philosophical debate, we end up with a two-
person monologue where the beliefs of the atheist are presented no more
rationally the those of the religious.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>Although there is no question that a large part of the religious dogma is
straight out false, it seems to me that, knowing how many things we still have
no understanding of, it would be just as unproductive to outright dismiss all
of it as false.

You either dismiss it all as false, accept it all as true, or you are a
hypocrite. The evidence is the same for all theologies. It's unproductive to
consider ideas that either have no evidence or have no logical basis, and that
describes theology.

> The thing is, in the right place, in the right context, those remarks could
> be interesting, however, when misplaced like that, they end up coming off as
> someone simply having a chip on their shoulder

For most of the past several thousand years, politely wording these sentiments
could end in your death. Even now, a failure to at least pay lip service to
Christian theology leaves you largely ineligible for public office, and may
limit other opportunities. So yes, there is a chip on their shoulder, many
people have a negative opinion about them no matter how tactful they are.

>And thus, instead of a philosophical debate, we end up with a two-person
monologue where the beliefs of the atheist are presented no more rationally
the those of the religious.

There is no debate with "the religious," there belief is based on things that
are not debatable. They often pride themselves on how their belief comes from
faith. The philosophical debate is another thing altogether.

~~~
Satam
Organized religion is a human endeavor and it should be taken as such.
However, if we put aside the politics and consider it strictly from the view
of someone who is trying to figure out the world, I don't see why it is
necessary to throw out the baby with its bathwater.

The fact that many different religions try to tackle the same questions makes
the possibility that a particular one has THE answers seem unlikely. However,
the fact they all gravitate towards the same kinds of answers is something
that should not be easily dismissed if we want to move the discussion forward.
To me, it seems that some sort of spiritual element is always gonna have to be
in play; that is, if we want to have any chance of answering those questions
in a manner that is not only true in the scientific sense but also in a way
that satisfies the restlessness which had inspired the search of the answers
in the first place. I must add, that the need to satisfy the restlessness, of
course, should not be taken as an excuse for accepting sub-par resolutions.

>For most of the past several thousand years, politely wording these
sentiments could end in your death. Even now, a failure to at least pay lip
service to Christian theology leaves you largely ineligible for public office,
and may limit other opportunities. So yes, there is a chip on their shoulder,
many people have a negative opinion about them no matter how tactful they are.

This has genuinely changed my view on this matter, thank you for bringing it
up. Reading or listening to eloquent people discuss the topics, it's been easy
for me to get hypnotized by their elegant arguments (even the ones I don't
agree with) and to forget the human that has crafted them. Growing up in a
country where militant religious attitudes (or strong religious attitudes at
all, really) are basically non-existent, I didn't really think about the point
that those people might have actually been slighted by religion in some way.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>However, the fact they all gravitate towards the same kinds of answers is
something that should not be easily dismissed if we want to move the
discussion forward.

If you analyze their answers, you realize that the same questions remain after
answered. Answering "why are we here" with "god made us" just changes the
question to "why is god here?" Their answers are similar as they generally
were not developed independently.

And again, all of their answers have no logical or scientific foundation. I
could not develop Christian theology without already having a bible, while the
philosophical debates presumably could be reproduced independently.

------
alexashka
> _He’s an agnostic troubled continuously by the unknowability, indeed the
> incomprehensibility, of total reality; of what lies beyond the world of
> appearances and can never be breached._

The article gave me the impression that Bryan Magee is troubled by boredom
mostly.

These 'meaning of life' questions can trick people into believing that it's
not knowing the answers to some questions, that is the cause of their unrest.

It's never that, it's always so much more simple :) I don't know that
philosophy students realize they're playing mind games with themselves, for
self-amusement. They have a tendency to take ideas seriously, life seriously,
and then oh my, you have 1001 problems to deal with!

~~~
qntty
If someone finds some feature of human existence troubling, what does it mean
to say that it's 'not really' that feature that's causing them trouble? Sure,
he might be happier if he was more stimulated, but that doesn't mean that he
wouldn't still be a bit troubled when he took a little time to remember what
troubled him before.

------
woodandsteel
As someone with a background in both philosophy and psychology, I can't help
thinking that both Magee's sense of terror and his ambition to make an
immortal contribution to philosophy both come at least in part from his
mother's failure to love him as a child.

------
blueprint
His questions are easy. He just never learned from someone who knows the
answers. If I were in his shoes I would have asked a master about them.

> Why is the universe so incredibly complicated?

It's not. What exactly is the range of the term universe? It's broad so he
ought to point out what he wants to know exactly and where it is. Things of
the world are simple when you know, but they are complicated to find out .

> does it [(time)] have a beginning?

Yes, it begins with activities. Not a very deep question; it needs improvement
to see a meaningful answer. If you have the wrong question in your mind then
even a master's answers will not match.

> the riddle of why we sleep

This is more of a biology question but if you want to know from a theory
standpoint why it happens, the answer is that what exists does so by repeating
what has been in itself and it only changes based on what happens to it.
Living beings repeat the bonds of birth and death repeatedly. Death is a time
of rest for human beings because their life is a time of work.

> What the hell is it all about?

Imprecise question. Clear why he obtained no concrete answer.

> What are we doing here?

Trying to improve your truths through the precious opportunity of life

> What’s going on?

You will know that after you can open your eye to the fundamental principle of
the world. But he didn't have enough virtue to reach that level yet.

~~~
sctb
We're missing out on what you have to share because you're addressing
questions asked not by Magee but by a journalist constructing a narrative for
the readers of this article, and so we get this dismissive comment. We don't
need such dramatized attacks on “wrongness”—we need thoughtful discussion
where we stand to learn something substantive. Hacker News readers can handle
it.

~~~
blueprint
It seems you're getting a little caught up in an assumption that I posited who
"he" is. It's not important... what's important are the questions themselves.
For example, if you truly intended to gain what I have then you should either
(a) prove that there is no such dire wrongness or (b) provisionally retract
your claim that the result of such wrong thought is not actually huge. I'm not
commenting to be treated well by humans. If you can't show something which you
need to know which we can exchange in real conversation, then I'm going to
remain wary of the actual meaning of your reply.

