Confessions of a Philosopher by Bryan Magee Weidenfeld & Nicolson 503pp, £20 in UK
As a science student in Belfast in the early Seventies, I once happened upon a philosophy student in the university bar. In the course of a brief conversation I jested: "Ah, philosophers, they are people who play jiggery-pokery with words." Reading Confessions of a Philosopher led me to consider that my remark, however facetiously intended, was also indicative of the extent to which a certain prejudice about - indeed, against - philosophy, current at the time, had taken root in the common mind. Bryan Magee gives a compelling reason, based on his own earliest experiences of studying philosophy at Oxford in the Fifties, why this was so.
For Magee, the middle decades of this century were something of a dark age for philosophy in Britain because of the way the dons at England's leading university had reduced the subject to a narrow concern with language. He relentlessly attacks the way in which a major discipline with a long tradition of addressing such fundamental issues as the nature of the world and the human self, how we should live and how we acquire knowledge had been needlessly trivialised by these clever but selfserving academics.
He attributes this state of affairs in large measure to the early formation of these dons in the curriculum of the English public schools, with its undue emphasis on classical languages. It has become a cliche to attribute Britain's mediocre economic performance to the influence of the old-boy network in the country's business and financial life. What is conveyed here is a corrosive influence of like origin on the country's cultural and intellectual life.
Not the least consequence of this situation was that many of the best minds turned away from philosophy. Magee rejected a conventional academic career in the subject. Nevertheless he made philosophy the major project of his life and did so in a way for which many, including myself, should be grateful to him. In the late Seventies I became interested in philosophy as a result of watching the series Men of Ideas hosted by Bryan Magee on BBC television. There can be little doubt that this series and a subsequent one, The Great Philosophers, along the same lines, have contributed greatly to a revival of popular interest in philosophy in recent times.
In his life Bryan Magee has been a television correspondent and presenter, a politician, a music and drama critic, an honorary academic and has written several books, mostly, but not exclusively, on philosophy. Although he emphasises that he regards the arts as more important than philosophy, a reading of this book led me to conclude that it was his intensely natural interest in philosophy, discovered at a very early age and subsequently developed in the way he chose, that gave unity to his very diverse life. Magee's intellectual formation in philosophy provided him with a powerful and versatile tool that he wields effectively to yield a persuasive critique of a variety of activities, experiences and ways of life. His philosophical interests and deeper beliefs fed into the various activities to which he addressed himself.
However, the performance was not uniformly good. He is at his best when presenting clearly and understandably the often very difficult ideas of the great philosophers; his elucidation of the thought of Kant (a notoriously difficult philosopher) in this book deserves special mention. His natural inclinations as a philosopher are most evident in dealing with the inner life of feeling, personal relationships and enjoyment of the arts.
Yet Bryan Magee was a Labour and then SDP MP for almost ten years. His contribution to politics was not particularly good. It is easy to attribute this to his other commitments; during his time as an MP he produced the series Men of Ideas and wrote an excellent but time-consuming book on Schopenhauer.
However, Magee suggests a more fundamental reason; the importance of politics is discounted by the greater weight he attaches to the inner life and the apprehension of this through the arts. Although always interested in politics, an interest largely inspired by an early reading of Marx's Das Kapital and Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies, in the end he endorses nothing more imaginative than "Thatcherism plus welfare".
Frank Falls works in the European Patent Office in Munich