--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sam Pawlett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 10:40:45 -0700
Subject: Confessions of a Philosopher
Confessions of a Philosopher by Bryan Magee. Weidenfeld and
Nicholson.502p1997
This is an intellectual autobiography written by one of the best
and most well known philosophers working outside the academy. A better
title may have been "My Philosophical Development" as the book contains
little autobiography understood in the traditional sense and a lot of
exegesis and some original thinking on Magee's favorite philosophers
(mostly Kant, Schopenhauer and Popper–his own philosophy a confused
amalgam of these three as well as with Fabian Socialism) Magee can lay
claim to being one of the last professional public philosophers left in
the world, trying desperately to revive or continue a tradition that
has over the course of history produced the best philosophers with the
exception of Kant and a few others. The fact that Magee never earned a
doctorate yet has been a fellow of Yale, Cambridge and Oxford
universities speaks for his abilities (or for his social circle).
Readers may find Magee arrogant, elitist and self-absorbed but
much of this goes with the genre of autobiography. The title of this
book is an interesting one, for "Confessions" was the name of St.
Augustine's masterpiece. August company indeed.
The book is touted as an introduction to the major dozen or so
philosophers of the Western tradition as well as some of the trends
within analytic philosophy such as logical positivism and linguistic
philosophy, the two traditions that Magee was educated in and has
subsequently rebelled against. Given the genre Magee is writing in, his
treatments of these philosophers is necessarily incomplete containing
many omissions including some of their major doctrines and arguments.
Magee writes about what interests him, which is fine in
autobiography but inexcusable if one is trying to present an
introduction to philosophy for the layman. Magee focusses heavily on
metaphysics and epistemology with little attention to aesthetics and
philosophy of science and no attention to ethics and moral/political
philosophy. Magee considers these latter fields ‘boring'. Philosophy ,in
his opinion, can shed no light on ethical questions. This is unfortunate
because the greatest philosophers in history were mostly system builders
who spent a lot of time and words on ethical, political and aesthetic
questions.
Magee has authored the definitive English language study/exegesis of
Schopenhauer, a brilliant, powerful and enigmatic yet extremely
reactionary philosopher. However, Magee in this book spends two
chapters explaining Schopenhauer's metaphysics and epistemology with
scarcely a mention of his philosophy of pessimism, his doctrine of the
will or his extremely offensive views on women, race and politics in
general. Magee spends an almost equal amount of time on Kant and his
first Critique. His is a decent interpretation placing Kant into an
overall context showing that Kant's goals were something more than the
standard interpretation that states Kant was only interested in
answering questions like ‘is synthetic a priori knowledge possible'.
Readers with no background in either thinker will find these parts of
the book tough going. Although Magee rightly considers Marx one of the
greatest thinkers of history, he offers up no exegesis or consideration
of Marx's work or subsequent writers working in the Marxist tradition.
Magee merely, over and over, refers readers to Karl Popper's Open
Society and Its Enemies for the definitive intellectual refutation of
Marx and Marxism. The unsavoury nature of the USSR and other so-called
socialist or Marxist states is ,for Magee, the empirical refutation of
Marx(ism). Generally, Popper's criticisms are considered to be off mark,
attacking a straw man relying on the problem of induction to refute the
"historical laws" that Marx was purported to have come with. This sets
standards too high as the problem of induction is probably intractable.
While Magee is right that a lot of Marxist work is of poor quality, he
should at least consider G.A. Cohen, a leading academic philosopher who
has written a tightly argued book reconstructing the second
international Marxism that Magee takes to be definitive as "Marxism".
Further, Magee should consider that , the only philosopher bashed and
misunderstood more than Marx is Popper himself. Indeed Popper bashing
has to some degree taken over from Marx bashing, as an excellent and
highly lucrative career choice among prospective academics. Many of
these so-called critics are as wrong about Popper as they were and are
about Marx.
Magee's confession contains a good deal of critical commentary on
the state and nature of academic philosophy. This is one of the most
enjoyable parts of the book (aside from his account of his quite close
personal relationships with Russell and Popper.) Through his two BBC
series and having known and studied most of the big names in
contemporary philosophy, he is in a fair position to deliver the
verdict: professional philosophy is irrelevant, intellectually, morally
and aesthetically bankrupt. Consider the following quotation where he is
discussing his BBC Radio 3 series on contemporary philosophers:
"Academic philosophers were on the whole pleased that it was
happening...but these reactions were secondary: far and away their most
powerful and intense concern was with who was being invited to take
part and to what degree this would enhance their personal standing...a
question fiercely discussed over quite a few dinner tables in North
Oxford was: Who is going to be invited? Will X get the call, or will he
find himself passed over in favour of Y? Each time someone was seen as
having been picked out there was a certain amount of sniping, but this
was as nothing compared with the overflow of joy each time someone was
seen as having been passed over–people actually rang up one another to
relay the news from freshly copies of the Radio Times...One simple truth
that all this brought home to me was that philosophy was the state it
was in at least partly because philosophers, by and large, were the sort
of people they were" 317-8.
Magee does much to expose the power mongering, careerism, callousness
and intellectual vacuity of contemporary philosophy. He is influenced
by Schopenhauer in his condemnation of philosophy-in-the-university and
his conception of philosophy in general is Schopenhaurian through and
through. Philosophy is about the study of problems and not texts. The
texts should only be an aid to one's own original thinking on matters
philosophical. Academic philosophy sees conceptual analysis as an end in
itself rather than as a means to an end viz. Solving philosophical
problems. The problem began with a wrong turn from Moore and Russell
early in the 20th century. Magee rightly skewers the common sense
philosophers beginning with Thomas Reid, whose philosophy could be
summed as "5 billion people can't be wrong." The truth, Magee insists,
is often counter-intuitive. Magee lionizes Popper and expresses contempt
for Wittgenstein. The latter an overrated sophist in his later work
while the early work is derivative of Schopenhauer. Wittgenstein is not
worth bothering with despite the fact that his conception of philosophy
is similiar to Magees. Magee claims that Popper was the greatest
philosopher of the 20th century. While no doubt Sir Karl was a extremely
brilliant man who knew and contributed much, Magee is a little too
hortatory given that Popper's main insights were derived from J.S. Mill.
As for autobiography, Magee is vague and gives no details,
probably for the better. Nothing about sexual conquests, successful
power struggles, wild parties or gossip of any kind. This is highly
salutary as it conveys Magee's intellectual seriousness. As he recounts
it, Magees life bears superficial resemblance to one of his idols,
Gustav Mahler. Magee's account of his obsession with his own death, the
writing of his novel ("Facing Death") and his solution (discovering
Schopenhauer) seem hackneyed if not downright farcical or hypocritical
coming from an upper class aesthete who has led a life of leisure
attending the Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals regularly as well as
concerts and theatres at least five times a week and who has never
worked for a wage. What good is a philosopher who hasn't agonized over
the meaning of death and hasn't been driven to despair over the thought
of his own death? Ah, the sufferings of the upper classes.
Stylistically, the writing is quite good despite a dozen or so very
irritating appearances of the word "marinate". There are also numerous
factual errors; the accusation that Ralph Schoenman was a CIA agent and
that Mahler's third symphony was not premiered until 1961 (Magee was,of
course, in attendance). Mahler himself gave the premiere of his third
symphony in Krefeld in 1902. Finally, Magee has absolutely no sense of
humor and takes himself far,far too seriously making himself look like
"Zelig" of the Woody Allen film.
Despite the many criticisms one could make of Magee and his book, (
blindspots the size of the Milky Way in science and political economy)
it is worth reading to encounter a man who has led a remarkable life,
teaching at Oxford and other elite institutions, traversed the globe as
BBC foreign affairs correspondent, author of 12 high quality and well
received books, radio and TV host of programmes of the highest calibre,
elected as Labor M.P. twice and came to know many major figured of 20th
century artistic, political and intellectual life.
Sam Pawlett
~~~~~~~
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