Bryan Magee Quotes

• The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers.

  Bryan Magee

  Philosophy, Real, Writing

  "Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey Through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper". Book by Bryan Magee, 1997.

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• I have very strongly this feeling that our everyday life is at one and the same time banal, overfamiliar, platitudinous and yet mysterious and extraordinary.

  Bryan Magee

  Life, Feelings, Everyday

  YouTube Channel "Manufacturing Intellect"/"Heidegger and Existentialism with Bryan Magee (1977)", www.youtube.com. September 17, 2017.

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• It could be that the total scenario for human beings is an insoluble mystery until we die, followed by nothing at all.

  Bryan Magee

  Mystery, Humans, Dies

  "Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey Through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper". Book by Bryan Magee, 1997.

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• To take, for example, my own death: what I consider most likely to be true is that death will be the complete and utter end of my existence, with no successor existence of any kind that can be related to me as I now am. And if that is not the case, the next most likely scenario, it seems to me, is something along the lines indicated by Schopenhauer. But neither of these is what I most want. What I want to be true is that I have an individual, innermost self, a soul, which is the real me and which survives my death. That too could be true. But alas, I do not believe it.

  Bryan Magee

  Real, Believe, Self

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• Superstitions and belief in magic are perennial in just the same way as religion, and something near to being universal among mankind; and why this is so may be interesting, but in most cases the beliefs themselves are devoid of interesting content, at least to me.

  Bryan Magee

  Interesting, Magic, May

  "Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey Through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper". Book by Bryan Magee, 1997.

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• The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers. Each of us emerges from the preconsciousness of babyhood and simply finds himself here, in it, in the world. That experience alone astonishes some people. What is all this - what is the world? And what are we? From the beginning of humanity some have been under a compulsion to ask these questions, and have felt a craving for the answers. This is what is really meant by any such phrase as 'mankind's need for metaphysics.'

  Bryan Magee

  Philosophy, Real, Writing

  "Confessions of a Philosopher". Book by Bryan Magee, 1997.

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• The Copernican revolution brought about by Kant was, I think, the most important single turning point in the history of philosophy.

  Bryan Magee

  Philosophy, Thinking, Important

  "Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey Through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper". Book by Bryan Magee, 1997.

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