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The Great Philosophers: an Introduction to Western Philosophy

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The Great Philosophers: an Introduction to Western Philosophy • TH E GREAT PH I L 0- SOPHERS AN INTRODUCTION TO WESTERN PHILOSOPHY BRYAN MAGEE THE GREAT PHILOSIJPHERS A Note on the Author Born in London in 1930, Bryan Magee was educated at Oxford, where he took two honours degrees- one in history, the other in philosophy, politics and economics - and was President of the Oxford Union. After holding a fellowship in philosophy at Yale he left academic life in 1956 to become an independent writer, critic and broadcaster. He continued this range of activities after taking up academic work once more in 1970, when he became a tutor in philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1973 he was elected a Visiting Fellow of All Souls. From 1974-6 he was a reg­ ular columnist on The Times and in 1979 was awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Television Society for his work in broadcast­ ing. Since 1984 he has been Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the History of Ideas at King's College, London University. His fourteen other books, which between them have been translated into as many languages, include Modern British Philosophy, Popper, Men of Ideas and The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS An lnlroduclion lo Weslern Philosophy BRYAN MAGEE Oxford New York OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford ox2 6oP Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Ca/cul/a Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin lbadan Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press Tex/©Brian Magee 1987 lllustralions: All illustrations© except: 25 Mansell Collection; 96--97 Laurie Sparharn/Network; 103 Mary Evans Picture Library; 135 National Ponrait Gallery, London; 144-145 Attila Kirally; 168-169 Laurie Sparharn/Network; 197 & 203 Mansell Collection; 21o-211 Laurie Sparharn/Network; 219 Archiv fUr Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin; 259 & 262 Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; 282 Historical Pictures Service, Chicago; 287 BBC Hulton Picture Libraryffhe Bettmann Archive; 292 Historical Pictures Service, Chicago; 305 Archiv fUrKunst und Geschichte, Berlin; 331 Popperfoto; 333 Archiv flir Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin. Firs/ published 1987 by BBC Books Firs/ issued as an Oxford University Press paperback 1988 Reprinted 1988 (rwice), 1989, 1990 (rwice), 1992 All rights reserved. No pari of thi.< publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmilled, in any fonn or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without lhe prior pennission of Oxford University Press This book is sold subject to the condilion thai ir shall no/, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired our or otherwise circulated wirhou/llre publisher's Jlrior consen/ in any fomr of binding or cover other than lira/ in which il is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Magee, Brian The great philosophers: an introduction lo Western philosophy. I. Western philosophy-Critical studies I. Title 190 ISBN D-ll}-282201-2 Library of Congress Catalo.�ing in Publication Data Data available Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay, Uq Bungay, Suffolk CONTENTS PREFACE 8 Bryan Magee, Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the History of Ideas, King's College, University of London Dialogue 1 PLATO 12 Myles Burnyeat, Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge Dialogue 2 ARISTOTLE 32 Martha Nussbaum, Professor of Philosophy and Classics, Brown University Dialogue 3 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 56 Anthony Kenny, Master of Balliol College, University of Oxford Dialogue 4 DESCARTES 76 Bernard Williams, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley Dialogue 5 SPINOZA AND LEIBNIZ 96 Anthony Quinton, Chairman of the British Library Dialogue 6 LOCKE AND BERKELEY 118 Michael Ayers, Fellow of Wadham College, University of Oxford Dialogue 7 HUME 144 John Passmore, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University Dialogue 8 KANT 168 Geoffrey Warnock, Principal of Hertford College, University of Oxford Dialogue 9 HEGEL AND MARX 188 Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy, Monash University Dialogue 10 SCHOPENHAUER 210 Frederick Copleston, Emeritus Professor of the History of Philosophy, University of London Dialogue 11 NIETZSCHE 232 J. P. Stern, Professor of German, University of London Dialogue 12 HUSSERL, HEIDEGGER AND MODERN EXISTENTIALISM 252 Hubert Dreyfus, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley Dialogue 13 THE AMERICAN PRAGMATISTS 278 Sidney Morgenbesser, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University Dialogue 14 FREGE, RUSSELL AND MODERN LOGIC 298 A. J. Ayer, formerly Professor of Logic, University of Oxford Dialogue 15 WITTGENSTEIN 320 John Searle, Professor of Philosophy, University of Cali­ fornia, Berkeley Index 348 It is owing to their wonder that men now begin, and first began, to philosophise. ARISTOTLE Thissense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin. PLATO PREF�CE BRYAN MAGEE 10 THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS PREFACE In the English-speaking world philosophy is not part of the mental furniture of most people, even most of those educated at universities. I suppose a majority of intelligent men and women regardless of education read novels and see plays; they take a newspaper-reading interest in politics, and through that and their work-experience pick up some economics; many of them read biographies, and thereby learn some history. But philosophy remains a closed book, except to the few who make a study of it. Partly this is due to the fact that in the twentieth century the subject has become professionalised and technical. Partly it is due to excessive specialisation in all subjects - British education in particular is open to the criticism that it does not carry general education to a high enough level. Partly it is due to Anglo-Saxon pride at not being too concerned with abstract ideas. Whatever the reason� in full, most well-read Anglo-Saxons are familiar with the names of the great philoso­ phers throughout their adult lives :withoutever knowing what their fame rests on, what indeed any of the famous philosophers is famous fo r. Why are Plato and Aristotle household names more than two thousand years after their deaths? A similar question can be asked about certain philosophers of more recent times. The answer, of course, is that their work is part of the foundations of Western culture and civilisation. But how? This book offers the beginnings of an answer to that question. If you were to go to a university to study philosophy you would almost certainly find thatthe core of the curriculum was about the nature, scope and limits of human knowledge, something which - after the Greek word 'episteme' meaning knowledge - is called epistemology. For most of the subject's history, certainly in recent centuries, this has constituted its main preoccupation, and for that reason it dominates university courses, and dominates this book. But subsidiary branches of philosophy can be fascinating too. For some people the most interesting of all are moral and political philosophy; but there are also aesthetics, logic, and philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and many others. Several are touched on in this book; but in the nature of things it has not been possible to do justice to them all in so short a space; so for clarity's sake I have stayed close to the central stream of the subject's development and followed that through, and looked at subsi­ diary aspects of it only when they compelled attention. Resisting tempta­ tions to digress was difficult, for there were so many things I would like to have included but, alas, could not find the space for. The book is based on a series of television programmes firsttransmitted by the BBC in 1987. It does not consist merely of transcripts of the programmes: the contributors and I started with those but then treated them with the irreverence that we would treat any first draft. The chief point which I as editor reiterated was that the book would have a life of its PREFACE 11 own independent of the television programmes, and therefore that we should take the trouble to make it as good as we could in its own right, unconfined by what we had said on the screen. The contributors responded with improvements at every level, from detailed polishing to radical restructuring. The need to publish the book at the time that the television programmes went on the air meant that the complete manu­ script had to be rushed to the publishers immediately after the last of the programmes, which happened to be the one on the American Pragma­ tists, had been put on tape. This was particularly hard on the protagonist in that programme because he wanted to recast his whole contribution, whereas the exigencies of time were such that responsibility for seeing it to the press had to be undertaken immediately by me in London, he being in New York. He gave me detailed notes and guidelines, and I did my best, but that is the one discussion in the book for which we would have liked more time. The television series was prepared and put on tape over a period of two and a half years, but the most important decisions were the earliest: how to divide up the subject matter and which contributors to invite. Different and equally defensible answers were available to both questions, and on both I went through changes of mind. During this period I conducted running consultations with a private think-tank consisting chiefly of Bernard Williams and Isaiah Berlin but including also Anthony Quinton and John Searle. As often as not these four gentlemen would give me four incompatible pieces of advice on the same issue, and for that reason alone they can none of them be blamed for the decisions I actually took.
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