The Life of Bryan

A review of Bryan Magee’s book Confessions of a Philosopher.

Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997

Bryan Magee is probably best known for his BBC TV series The Great Philosophers which appeared in the mid-80s. He also presented Men of Ideas in the mid-70s and Thinking Aloud in the early 80s. This book is a highly enjoyable philosophical autobiography, with about 30% covering Magee’s life and 70% covering his philosophical development, with in-depth discussions of the philosophy of Kant, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Popper, among many others.

Even as a child Bryan Magee was troubled with philosophical questions. The first chapter details his childhood discovery of philosophical problems and is a wonderful introduction to philosophy. It should be published separately and a copy given to every school library.

Only when Magee went to university at Oxford did he realise his questions about life were philosophical questions. He graduated from Oxford then went on to Yale in the USA to complete his education. On returning to England he began work in television, as an editor for TV documentaries, and by the 60s was writing and presenting regular documentaries on a wide variety of topics such as abortion, homosexuality and nuclear war. After this he presented Modern British Philosophy on Radio 3, and two series of intellectual debates for ITV: Argument and Something to Say. Unfortunately although these debates featured Margaret Mead, Enoch Powell, Alan Walters, Denis Healey, Bernard Williams, Keith Joseph and Raymond Williams, among many others, most of the tapes have been wiped by the ITV companies and no trace remains. During this time Magee also wrote the novel Facing Death on which the film Love Story is based.

From the mid-70s to the mid-80s Magee presented the philosophical TV series Men of Ideas, Thinking Aloud and The Great Philosophers. No further biographical details are covered after The Great Philosophers. Also, from the mid-70s to 1983 Magee was a Labour MP!

To simply describe Bryan Magee’s life in outline does not reveal the great driving force within it: philosophy. For all of his life Magee has sought the answers to life’s big questions. Magee finished working on TV documentaries so he could devote his time to studying philosophy and ideas. He quite deliberately avoided an academic career on the grounds that academic philosophy only studies about philosophy - it is not doing philosophy. Magee’s book reads like a detective story as the author tries to find the answer to life’s big questions. At certain points in his life Magee confesses that the frustration at finding no answers to philosophy’s problems made him nearly go mad, and at times even lose the will to live. In his search for answers Magee’s story takes us through the history of philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, Popper, Russell, Ayer and Frege. At one point Magee studies religion - Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism - and explains why he feels religion is ultimately an evasion of truth. Magee’s thirst for philosophy also leads him to know personally the philosophers Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper, and there are illuminating chapters on his encounters and meetings with these great men.

This book is full of interesting arguments and discussions, written in Magee’s highly readable and lucid style. One broad theme gives a flavour of his arguments: "annihilate the secondary" . Repeatedly in the book Magee argues for reading and studying the key texts of philosophy and grappling directly with the big philosophical problems. He argues against reading secondary literature except in exceptional circumstances and concentrating instead on the "timeless" classics of philosophy. Strangely Magee’s life is characterised by this distinction - removal of the secondary by the primary. In his career, for example, he decided to be paid for doing what he wanted to do anyway - so avoiding any dichotomy between his "real" interests and his work. So when he wants to study religion, he attains a commission from a TV company to produce a series of programs on religion. His preparation consisted of three months visiting the Holy Land and other religious sites and of course reading the religious classics (the Bible, the Koran, the Hindu scriptures etc) - he also met with religious leaders and discussed their ideas. This of course is the "ideal" form of searching for the truth - no secondary sources, all "primary": visiting the "original" Holy Land, reading the "original" classics, talking to religious leaders and experts. Most people would only engage with religion at a secondary level - they would visit their local church, read popular religious authors etc, but Magee engages directly with the purest form of religious truth to evaluate it and make a decision. Magee’s rejection of religion is also based on a primary/secondary distinction: ultimately his argument is "why should I believe your account of God rather than some other account?" Interestingly when Magee does explain his beliefs, one of them is in ultimate reality being beyond space and time, and one of his justifications for this is that it is universally believed by all religions.

Another example of Magee’s primary/secondary distinction is art. Magee loves art and says in a typical week he will visit 4/5 operas or theatres in London as well as visiting festivals such as Bayreuth. This way he is able to repeatedly see the great works but on by the best companies. Again, most people would only experience art at a secondary level - listening to records, see plays at the local theatre - but again Magee aims at the "ideal" artistic experience of continuous exposure to great works of art.

At the personal level Magee confesses that he has never fallen in love (he does not have a family or children) and so the "secondary" restrains of a family do not distract him from his primary aim of the study of philosophy - almost as if his subconscious is following Christ’s command to "forsake all else and follow me".

Not surprisingly, at a philosophical level Magee opposes all distractions from investigating the central problems of philosophy. He writes passionately against the analytic tradition and its attempts to reduce philosophy to language (indeed, his Radio 3 series Modern British Philosophy was his being paid by the BBC to confirm his suspicion that this philosophical tradition was a dead-end). He also damns the other main modern philosophical tradition, Continental Philosophy, as being too "journalistic" - that is, too concerned with the here and now rather than the ultimate and eternal. Magee’s assessment of philosophy is very long term: the first great philosopher was Plato, the next - after a gap of 2000 years - was Kant, and Magee is willing to accept that we may have to wait another 2000 years for the next great philosopher. The only modern philosophers Magee has any time for are Popper (whom he regards as the greatest twentieth century philosopher), Russell (Magee feels he was philosophically a pre-Kantian trapped in the empiricist tradition and for this reason unable to be truly great but nevertheless someone doing real philosophy and whose writing style makes him a joy to read) and the early Wittgenstein (not the later Wittgenstein of Philosophical Investigations who Magee sees as someone who has given up on philosophy and was just playing with puzzles.

The book ends with Magee confessing that the questions he had as a child still haven’t been answered by philosophy. So for all his studying of the classics, Magee doesn’t have one of the characteristics of classic philosophy: the belief that he has found the answers.

Anyway, here are the questions I wanted answered.