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The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy

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The basis of this wonderful book is a series of television programs first telecast by the BBC in 1987. However, while most would have stopped there and merely published the book as a transcript of the shows, Magee takes it one, two, and even three steps farther. As editor, he reworked the transcripts and even brought back his contributors for further revisions and improvements. The result is a delightful book that easily exceeds one's expectations, and mine were not so high given the fact the book is a series of conversations with academics about a particular philosopher or school of philosophy. In the wrong hands, this can be certain death by boredom. But in the right hands . . .

Can academics keep our interest while discussing philosophy? They can easily do so when: (1) they are allowed to rework and improve their material; and (2) when they are talking with Bryan Magee. Magee is no mere interviewer; he prods, interjects, disagrees, and yet allows his subject to shine when conversing about their subject. This is no mean feat; it takes a delicate skill to pull this off and still keep it entertaining. And this is exactly what Magee does. Whether he's asking Anthony Kenny his opinion on why so many great medieval philosophers come from The British Isles, asking Anthony Quinton to more exactly define Leibniz's Monad, debating Schopenhauer's philosophy with Frederick Copleston, or just sitting back and allowing Geoffrey Warnock to explain Kant's mataphysics, Magee keeps his readers not only entertained, but delightfully informed.

The highlights of the book are Passmore's explanation of Hume, Magee's defense of Schopenhauer during his conversation with Copleston (was included because he penned book, albeit hostile, about Schopenhauer), Warnock's easy explation of Kant's sometimes difficult metaphysics, Hubert Dreyfus on Husserl and Heidegger, and John Searle explaing the wonder that is Wittgenstein. Quite a lot of highlights for such a book, but as I said before, this is no ordinary book.

One final word: Magee is often described as a popularizer, a word that is often used disparingly, as in "He's not an expert, he's just a popularizer." Nonsense. A popularizer is at root a teacher, and to be a popularizer, one must really have a firm grasp of the subject matter. There are good popularizers and bad popularizers. Magee is among the very best. He not only knows his subject matter, but has the unique talent of making the experts not only entertaining, but also amazingly lucid.

This book is a bargain at any price.

For many years in Britain Bryan Magee has been a popularizer of philosophy-and unashamedly so. In his view philosophy is too important and relevant a subject to be left to academics. There are few who can elucidate and demystify as capably. Accordingly, when you have Magee interviewing famous philosphers about very famous philosophers you have the ingredients of an exciting recipe-and the product is not disappointing. There is Bernard Williams on Descartes, Geoffrey Warnock on Kant and J P Stern on Nietzche-all outstanding. Beyond this though there is Dreyfus on Heidigger- a remarkable insight into a difficult philosopher and John Searles cool exposition of Wittgenstein. However, the very best is Coppelston and Magee on Schopenhaeur. Here Magee departs from his role as lucid interrogator and engages with the expert, often disagreeing. This is (as he explains) because Schopenhauer has been the subject of one of his own books. All of this makes for a lively exchange which led this reader to research further. While he popularizes Magee never cheapens. You should not expect this to survey all the thoughts of any one writer, but rather to stimulate your interest to read some great minds yourself. If this does so for any thinker the the author will have served his purpose.

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?

This book does an amazing job of CLEARLY explaining the philosophies of the preeminent modern philosophers (and a few earlier ones as well). It's wonderful how it's written in plain english -- all too rare in philosophy books. But it's also written on a high level and doesn't "dumb down" anything. Both this book and Magee's similar "Talking Philosophy" (focusing on more recent philosophers) are highly recommended.

Bryan Magee's 'Introduction to Western Philosophy' is a brilliant analysis of the works of the most important Western philosophers from Plato to Bertrand Russell.

This book is based on a BBC TV series which was presented as a discussion between the author and one of the leading authorities on every philosopher.
During the discussions all the most important philosophical problems were tackled. To name a few: causality, determinism, free will, freedom, the existence of the self, the body-mind problem, the subject-object relationship, the problem of induction, tolerance, the problem of the just war or the basics of human nature ('the would-be knower is a biological organism struggling for survival').

This book is written in very clear, straightforward and very comprehensive prose, rather exceptional for this kind of work.
It gives a magisterial summary of the basic ideas of every philosopher. Into the bargain, it can be consulted easily for every chapter can be read independently.

I have only a few remarks. First, I miss one great philosopher of the 20th century: Karl Popper. I suppose that he was left out because he was still living when the book was published. On the other hand, Bryan Magee filled the gap by writing a separate book on Popper, which I recommend to everyone.
Secondly, I don't share his enthusiasm for the 'second' Wittgenstein and the latter's disastrous sliding into the morass of linguistics with his language games.

All in all, this book is a magisterial summary of 2500 years of Western philosophy. A must read.

A wonderful intro to Western thought. How this is distinguished from Magee's "Story of Philosophy", I do not know. I encourage a reviewer of "Story" to encapsulate that book in such a way as to help readers from buying and reading a book that duplicates this one too much.

Specifically, "Great Philosophers" is a series of conversations with known experts on various philosophers, dialogues as opposed to only Magee's thoughts.

The philosophers covered are 1)Plato; 2)Aristotle; 3)Augustine; 4)Aquinas (only very brief mention of other medievals); 5)Decartes; 6)Spinoza; 7)Leibniz; 8)Locke; 9)Berkeley; 10)Hume; 11)Kant; 12)Hegel (little on Marx); 13)Schopenhauer; 14)Nietzsche; 15)Heidegger (little on Husserl and Satre); 16)Pierce; 17)James; 18)Dewey; 19)Frege; 20)Russell; and 21)Wittgenstein.

The writing style is lucid for the topics covered. Of the 347 pages in the book, 68 pages are pictures of philosophers, title pages, or blank pages. So, the book is very compact with 279 pages of actual text, either introduction by Magee or dialogue between Magee and the respective expert.

For the most part, Magee let's the expert dominate, unless the expert needs nudging. Magee's role is primarily to direct the flow of the dialogue, completing one topic and starting another.

As a non-philosophy student, I chose to read "Great Philosophers" in three distinct sections: Plato through Hume; then back to Decartes, jumping to Kant through Wiitgenstein; and finally reviewing Spinoza through Hume. I found this method allowed me to avoid mental exhaustion. The non-philosophy student may wish to take a similar approach.

Excellent introduction to Western philosophy. The best intro I have read so far that defines the main thoughts with lucidity. The reason why this book is so valuable is that it is written from transcripts from a British television show. The transcripts were then edited, abridged and revamped for clarity. And they are really lucid. Each essay is a conversation of two persons, Brian Magee and another person expertise on the particular philosopher being discussed. So the entire book is done in dialogs, which I find similar to another beneficial book from television dialogues on human consciousness, Thinking Allowed, by Jeffrey Mishlove. This book by Brian Magee pretty much takes the the major Western philosophical thought within 350 pages, lucid and direct.

The list of philosophers being discussed are Plato, Aristotle, Medieval Philosophy of St. Augustine. and Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza and Lebnitz, Locke and Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel and Marx, Schopenhauer Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Modern Existentialism, Pierce, James, Dewey and American Pragmatism, Frege, Russell Ayer and Modern Logic and Wittgenstein.

From Plato's theory of forms, that is, the transient, changing world of flux and appearances and the fixed, eternal world of perfect forms.to Aristotle's inquiry of substance behind the surface of empirical observation, inquiry to what is the real meaning of what is existence. I really enjoyed the explanations of Hegel and Marx's replacement of materialism within the same historical philosophy and Wittgenstein's linguistic determination of meanings. It also clarified Heidegger's difference from Husserl's idea of mind direction or intention to that of unconscious involvement inside the actions, whether intention is employed or not. and the idea that Sartre attempted to place Heidegger's idea in the Cartesian means of Husserl. Nietzsche's attack on four main traditions, against Socratic inquiry in favor of more instinctual drives, a law unto themselves. Great discussion on Schopenhauer's similarity to Buddhist underlying unity of reality but with a pessimist view.

A lot more information, lucid, short and concise. Great book.

Derived from a British t.v. series on the great philosophical thinkers in the Western intellectual tradition, this book is a finely done entry point for those with an interest in this field. Because it is largely a record of conversations, albeit edited afterwards by the participants, it is necessarily superficial in some areas and, therefore, does not always give the fullest rendition of the ideas of the thinkers who are its subjects. And yet it offers some very nice explications of some rather difficult stuff. In some sense it is probably of more interest to the professional (or those, at least, with some real background in philosophy) since so much of the material is highly technical and handled so quickly that, lacking a preliminary understanding of the concepts being elucidated, one is likely to miss much. Still some of the material is absolutely superb. The section on Heidegger, for instance, helped me to understand that very obscurantist thinker in a way that elucidated what had always been opaque for me before. And the last section, on Wittgenstein, gave me a new feel for his very subtle and profound view of things. In fact, I read the section on Wittgenstein first (even though it's the book's final offering) and then, having finished the rest of the book, returned to it again. And then I found it even richer than on the first go-round. Other areas particularly worth delving into included the sections on Plato and Aristotle, and on Locke and Hume. On the other hand, I thought the exposition of Kant's thought a bit lacking and that on the Pragmatists rather too swiftly dealt with and not nearly as useful as I'd hoped. Berkeley, too, gets short shrift; but the offerings on Spinoza and Leibniz and, later Frege and Russell were very useful. In sum, a good intro for those who are not starting in this business from scratch and, certainly, a fine platform from which to go on to further readings, as one must, after this, given the fact that so much of the material is so cursorily handled. -- SWM

I'd recommend this over Bertrand Russell's celebrated history and any number of series that attempt to give the general reader a good overview of Western Philosophy. The BBC series these interviews were conducted for decades ago is television at its best. The clips can be seen these days on YouTube. Bryan Maggie is a fine interviewer and guide and the gentlemen he gathered to share their expertise, each on a philosopher they were especially qualified to school us on, couldn't have done a better job. That there are not more quality television programs like this is a sad, disgusting comment on society. I can only assume a great deal of cynicism is to blame. Modern life is crap. But we got this great collection of interviews on the most profound thinkers of our civilization which will continue to serve as a classic intro to all those more curious about the world then what television seems capable of showing us these days.

Composed of a series of interviews, each with a scholar distinguished in his field, *The Great Philosophers* provides an overview of the major Western thinkers from Socrates to Sartre. Bryan Magee does an excellent job in guiding each discussion in such a way that one gains a good overview of the philosopher under consideration and manages to clarify most of the more abstruse concepts and lines of argument.

Each interview is allotted between 15 to 20 pages so the discussions stay pretty focused, cover the major points, and what you necessarily lose in detail, you gain in not being completely overwhelmed. The dialogue format is also a great aid to comprehension and keeps things lively, especially if you're like me ((and my deepest sympathies if that's the case)) and find your eyes glazing over and that you're daydreaming about what to have for lunch when reading large expository blocks of type about someone like Hegel. *The Great Philosophers* is also an excellent book if you've always confined your study to one or two favorite philosophers but have neglected centuries of philosophical thinking because you just can't stomach the idea of plowing through anything by Thomas Aquinas, for instance, even though you know it's important to have at least some grasp of medieval philosophy in order to understand philosophy as a whole. This is what *The Great Philosophers* does best, I think: fill in the blanks in your philosophical education just about as efficiently and enjoyably as possible.

For the most part, the discussions are relatively easy to understand, although I did have some trouble with some of the later chapters dealing with Russell, Wittgenstein, and the Pragmatists, but then logic and mathematics is admittedly something I have absolutely no aptitude for and I'd be lucky to understand even an Idiot's Guide to the topic. Most likely a person of even average intelligence would understand the discussions here; after all, I found the treatment of even someone like the aforementioned Hegel completely decipherable.

In short, an excellent book that inspires one to read even deeper into the subject, *The Great Philosophers* is particularly suited to students, writers, artists, and anyone else, who, though not a professional philosopher, has an interest in the history of the seminal thinkers and the ideas that have shaped our culture.