The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy 2nd Edition by Bryan Magee (PDF)

Description

Beginning with the death of Socrates in 399 B.C., and following the strand of philosophical inquiry through the centuries to recent figures such as Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, Bryan Magee’s conversations with fifteen contemporary writers and philosophers provide an accessible and exciting account of Western philosophy and its greatest thinkers. With contributions from A. J. Ayer, Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, and John Searle, the book is not only an introduction to the philosophers of the past, but gives an invaluable insight into the view and personalities of some of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Bryan Magee is a Visiting Professor at King’s College London and has published sixteen other books including Modern British Philosophy, and Creators of Contemporary Philosophy.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Anyone interested in philosophy should read this book. It is very interesting and very hard to put down. However, the main factor that makes this book unique has a negative effect, and hence the four stars. The book is basically a dialogue between Magee and other philosophers. This is a very interesting approach and the result was a great book. The problem is that I don’t think that the best way to introduce philosophy is to have two philosophers talk about it. Magee always tries to clarify things when he feels that the discussion is getting a bit too complicated and succeeds most of the time, but some times this didn’t pay off. I found the chapters concerning the philosophers that I had a little background information of much easier than those concerning philosophers that I knew nothing of. I know that this is logical, but in a book that is meant to be an introduction, the novice reader should find it easy to read about what he/she does not know. Apart from this little difficulty, the book is an amazing one. Magee is a great host and his guests are extremely knowledgeable about their subjects. The most important thing is that this book covered most great philosophers as the title promises.

⭐I highly recommend this book to anyone that ever wonder what philosophy is about but couldn’t get pass the first sentence on other philosophy books. You will get a better understanding of the ideas of the most influential western philosophers from Socrates all the way to the 20th century. I reread it from time to time to refresh my understanding of the topic. And is never boring. A very special book to have in your library.

⭐I have a non-professional interest in philosophy. I loved this book. It provides a short and clear introduction to a dozen major philosophers. Magee loves his subject and is a great explainer. Highly recommended.

⭐In short, this book is a masterpiece, consisting of Magee going head to head with some of the most noted academics and specialists in the work of the philosophers surveyed. Magee proves himself not only to be a masterly thinker on western philosophy — but at least equal in intellect to the luminaries he interviews (A J Ayer, B Williams, Nussbaum, Searle, H Dreyfus, P Singer, Copleston, etc). The late Magee never had a permanent academic appointment, and he joins the august group that includes Spinoza and Schopenhauer in this respect.No, this book is not suitable for a novice except for the most talented and persevering,Sadly, the production value of this paperback is of the lowest standard, with cheap glued bindings that scatter the pages under any pressure (I use a rubber band to hold it together). And the quality of the paper is similarly cheesy, brown and coarse as evidence of the lignin that remains after the cursory *papermaking” process. Certainly the disparity between the quality of the text and the form in which it is published is enormous. The paperback is, resultingly, very inexpensive. An imperative read from which even the experienced reader will draw many insights.

⭐This book should not have been misrepresented as being in good OR very good condition. It all speaks to a materialistic culture where all that matters is a buck.

⭐excellent

⭐Great for philosophy students!

⭐I know of no better introduction to the history of philosophy than this volume, which is about as engaging as books on philosophy get. The conversations are easy to follow; no knowledge of arcane terminology is presupposed; and every attempt is made to bring out why these ideas are important and worthy of serious study today. Furthermore, the book’s coverage is quite broad for its length of three hundred pages. It manages to cover philosophy from Plato to Wittgenstein, and I can’t think of a single absolutely essential figure in the history of philosophy whose work isn’t discussed here. Nevertheless, this book is less ambitious than many other shorter books on the history of philosophy in that it doesn’t attempt to cover the entire history of philosophy. Instead, Magee and his interlocutors focus in on the most important figures in the history of philosophy and devote an entire chapter to each of them. Where historical trends in philosophy or other, less important figures are mentioned, they’re mentioned in relation to the figures to whom the particular chapters are devoted. This strikes me as a significant strength of this book as a book for someone coming to philosophy for the first time. A beginner needs to know about Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, et al.; she doesn’t need to know a little bit about every figure who has introduced an important idea or two. Finally, most of the interviews are with thinkers who are themselves good philosophers, and, in several cases (e.g., Bernard Williams on Descartes, Miles Burnyeat on Plato, Michael Ayers on Locke, and Hubert Dreyfus on Heidegger), the interviewee has done first-rate work on the very philosopher(s) he or she is discussing.Each interview begins with a short biographical sketch of the subject by Brian Magee, and some attempt is made, in these introductions and in the interviews, to place each figure’s ideas into the history of philosophy and into the history of ideas more generally. Still, there is no general format for these discussions. Some of the interviews begin with a sketch of the thinker’s methodology or conception of philosophy; some begin with an account of one of the thinker’s distinctive views that provides an entry into his thinking; some begin with a discussion of a problem to which the thinker was responding. From these beginnings, the conversation tends to develop and cover more of the thinker’s views, with the dialogue format keeping things fairly informal without being superficial.It’s not that this book makes all of these things easy to understand. Some of them just aren’t easy to understand, and there is no way to accurately describe their views while making those views easy to understand. And, in some cases, the difficulty of their views isn’t simply a matter of unnecessary pedantry or willful obscurity on their part–though, in other cases, it may be partly a matter of these things. In fact, some of these figures (i.e., Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein) are notorious for the difficulty of their work. But, even in these cases, the conversations here go some way in helping to introduce their thought.I recommend this book to anyone who wants an entry into the study of the history of the philosophy. In addition, if you simply memorize most of the information in this volume, you’ll know enough to understand just about any reference to a famous philosopher and his ideas that you find outside of a philosophy classroom or journal. In other words, you’ll look smarter if you read this book. Heck, reading this book might even make you smarter. What more can you ask for?

⭐Take a peripatetic stroll down memory lane by reading the views of contemporary philosophers on the greatest philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein. This book is a written record of the interviews conducted as a series of BBC television programs during 1987. This is not a work for beginners in Philosophy because it presupposes philosophical knowledge for a full understanding of the issues discussed. The usual stumbling blocks for a historical work of this kind would be the treatment of the great greats, namely Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein. Very often authors reveal their philosophical limitations in dealing with one or more of the aforementioned philosophers. Magee superbly negotiates these obstacles with some grace and style. The scope of such a work of course needed to be limited but I do regret the decision not to spend more time on political philosophy in general and that no room could be found for Hannah Arendt’s work in this field, perhaps in dialogue number 12 on the existentialists.There are many things in this work to highlight but perhaps I can mention dialogue number 10 on Schopenhauer where two of the leading published experts on his work namely, Copplestone and Magee meet in a fascinating discussion. Dialogue number 15 on Wittgenstein was also important at the time the interviews were being broadcasted because there were a number of intellectual skirmishes over the work of Wittgenstein which demonstrated a lack of understanding of his work. Subsequent publications have disentangled some of the more important ideas of Wittgenstein from the thickets of misunderstanding that arose, making John Searle’s prediction that the future would bring greater understanding of his work seem almost clairvoyant.

⭐This is a great book for philosophy students. It breaks ideas down in a clear way, without oversimplifying.I like the interview style (this is basically the transcript from the show) as it makes it easier to read and find what you need. I use this to make sure I understand the famous philosophers general concepts. I definitely recommend this!

⭐Amazing

⭐Great book – even better are the accompanying YouTube clips!!!

⭐”The Great Philosophers” is an interesting book, but unlike some other reviewers I would hesitate about recommending it to beginners in the subject like myself. If I hadn’t have read Nigel Warburton’s “Philosophy-The Classics” before I tackled this book I wouldn’t have had a clue about most of what Bryan Magee and his academic friends were talking about. The book takes the form of dialogues between Magee and various philosophers about the most notable philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein. The book assumes that the reader is familiar with the material that these philosophers wrote and understands it. I was able to follow the dialogues with relation to the likes of Plato or Hume for instance (these philosophers were covered in “Philosophy-The Classics”), but got lost when they started talking about Heidegger and the American Pragmatists (not covered in Warburton’s book).So I would approach “The Great Philosophers” with caution if I were a beginner in the subject. The book is quite a highbrow one and the dialogues discuss general theories rather than explore and explain them in detail to the reader. “The Great Philosophers” is a challenging read and I would definitely advise any interested beginners to try a few easier books first rather than delve into this one right away.

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