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How to live meaningfully in the face of the unknowable We human beings had no say in existing—we just opened our eyes and found ourselves here. We have a fundamental need to understand who we are and the world we live in. Reason takes us a long way, but mystery remains. When our minds and senses are baffled, faith can seem justified—but faith is not knowledge. In Ultimate Questions, acclaimed philosopher Bryan Magee provocatively argues that we have no way of fathoming our own natures or finding definitive answers to the big questions we all face. With eloquence and grace, Magee urges us to be the mapmakers of what is intelligible, and to identify the boundaries of meaningfulness. He tra...
In this infectiously exciting book, Bryan Magee tells the story of his own discovery of philosophy and not only makes it come alive but shows its relevance to daily life. Magee is the Carl Sagan of philosophy, the great popularizer of the subject, and author of a major new introductory history, The Story of Philosophy. Confessions follows the course of Magee's life, exploring philosophers and ideas as he himself encountered them, introducing all the great figures and their ideas, from the pre-Socratics to Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper, including Wittgenstein, Kant, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, rationalism, utilitarianism, empiricism, and existentialism.
Award-winning investigative reporters journey inside the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice to see how the powerful law enforcement agency fights America's war on crime. This perceptive examination reveals how the Justice Department operates--from its role in history to critical evaluations of its wars against the Cali cocaine cartel, violent gangs in Shreveport and Chicago, high-level government espionage, and international terrorism.
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.
Hoxton today is one of the most fashionable parts of inner London, yet within living memory it was the capital's most notorious slum area. In this work, Bryan Magee recalls the vanished world of his childhood living in Hoxton and brings it to life again in all its drama and surprise.
Many music lovers find Wagner's operas inexpressibly beautiful and richly satisfying, while others find them revolting, dangerous, self-indulgent, and immoral. The man who W.H. Auden once called "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived" has inspired both greater adulation and greater loathing than any other composer. Bryan Magee presents a penetrating analysis of Wagner's work, concentrating on how his sensational and deeply erotic music uniquely expresses the repressed and highly charged contents of the psyche. He examines not only Wagner's music and detailed stage directions but also the prose works in which he formulated his ideas, as well as shedding new light on his anti-semitism and the way in which the Nazis twisted his theories to suit their own purposes. Outlining the astonishing range and depth of Wagner's influence on our culture, Magee reveals how profoundly he continues to shock and inspire musicians, poets, novelists, painters, philosophers, and politicians today.
This collection of essays provides a timely assessment of the life and work of one of the twentieth century's most original thinkers.
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The long-awaited autobiography by Derek Forbes, the Simple Minds legend known for his iconic spine-rattling bass riffs which we recognise in many Simple Minds' songs. This is his story. Derek Forbes started his musical career as a lead guitarist but soon changed to bass guitarist. He wrote and co-wrote many of Simple Minds' earliest classics. Derek Forbes won an Ivor Novello Award for 'Outstanding Song Collection' in 2016 for his song writing for Simple Minds, voted best bass player in the World 1982 and best bass player from Scotland in 2010. Derek is also well-known on the international stage as songwriter and bassist for Big Country and Propaganda and has recorded with Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Kirsty MacColl. He still lives in Glasgow and is planning his next tour.