This was on TV?

Bryan Magee, Who Brought Philosophy to British TV, Dies at 89

On the television program “Men of Ideas,” he interviewed prominent philosophers of his time, including Isaiah Berlin, Iris Murdoch and Noam Chomsky.

“There is, throughout television, an urge to translate all subject matter into entertainment, and because this militates against the making of serious demands on the viewer, the result is a common refusal to confront the making of difficult things clear as a task to be tackled,” he wrote in the introduction to his book “Men of Ideas,”in 1979, which was based on the television show.

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His programs on the BBC, “The Great Philosophers” and “Men of Ideas,” did not look like much. One critic described them as “two boffins on a sofa.” Mr. Magee and a contemporary philosopher would sit on a sofa against a gray or brown background, exploring the seminal works of the likes of Plato and Wittgenstein, or talking about modern philosophy.

But the format gave scores of students and others a concise and effective introduction to philosophy that left a lasting impression.

Mr. Magee also wrote and edited 23 books, including memoirs, social commentary, a volume of poetry and a novel. 

“The Story of Philosophy” and “The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy” were among his most popular works, providing generations of students with a summary of the principal schools of thought.

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Among his later works was “Ultimate Questions,” which examined some of the hardest questions confronting humankind, such as “do we cease to exist when we die?”

“The future is full,” he wrote. “We just do not yet know what it is. The events that will fill it are as concrete, factual and specific as those that fill our past.”

“Each one of us has no choice but to live the whole of his life in his own little bit of time. That is his ration, his all. In life as we know it, time is the cruellest, the most lethal of all the forms of our limitation.”