Based on a highly successful BBC television series, this book presents fifteen dialogues between author and broadcaster Bryan Magee and some of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. Isaiah Berlin considers the fundamental question, "What is philosophy?," A. J. Ayer reviews logical positivism, and Iris Murdoch talks about the relation between philosophy and literature. Moral philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science are all treated in depth by the thinkers who have shaped these fields—including Noam Chomsky, W. V. O. Quine, and Herbert Marcuse. Written in an informal, conversational style, even the most difficult philosophical ideas are made accessible to the general reader.
Author
Bryan Edgar Magee was a noted British broadcasting personality, politician, poet, and author, best known as a popularizer of philosophy. He attended Keble College, Oxford where he studied History as an undergraduate and then Philosophy, Politics and Economics in one year. He also spent a year studying philosophy at Yale University on a post-graduate fellowship. Magee's most important influence on society remains his efforts to make philosophy accessible to the layman. Transcripts of his television series "Men of Ideas" are available in published form in the book Talking Philosophy. This book provides a readable and wide-ranging introduction to modern Anglo-American philosophy.
