The ideas Magee presents have a distinguished pedigree. His dualism can trace its ancestry to Descartes, and his empiricism goes back to Locke. However, there is an alternative account of human nature, according to which human beings are simply rational animals without any mystical inner selves. They are material objects gifted with life, sensation, and thought. They are social animals whose experiences are not private but may be manifested to other members of society.
This alternative philosophy has an even more venerable pedigree, going back to Aristotle. But it acquired new life in the 20th century when Wittgenstein took the axe to dualism and empiricism. Magee frequently expresses admiration for Wittgenstein: but when he quotes it is from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, not from the mature Philosophical Investigations which offered us liberation from false pictures of the human mind.
It is in relation to an afterlife that Magee is, in my view, too agnostic. He more than once puts the question “Do we cease to exist when we die?” and he tells us that only a being with higher powers than ours could know the answer. He imagines himself being asked, about a loved one, such questions as “Is she an immortal soul?” His answer is “I don’t know . . . I do not know these things even about myself, let alone her.” I believe that he should have answered “No.” We are not immortal souls. We are animals that are not only rational, but also mortal.
In several places Magee expresses his worry about death. This is totally understandable, given that for all he knows he might live on in some totally unknown — and therefore possibly horrendous — form. But he is horrified also by the possibility of annihilation. I find this hard to understand. I do not see my own annihilation as any event of grand tragedy. The universe existed for many millennia before I was born and no doubt it will do so very well for long after I die. And as for me, once I am annihilated, there will be no me to feel any pain, anguish, regret or despair.
Magee’s writing always makes very easy reading. Some object to this, saying that philosophy has no shallow end, and cannot but be difficult. That is true, but Magee is addressing not those who are already in the water, but those who are shivering on the bank wondering whether to dive in. This book may well encourage them to do so. If they believe everything it says, then in my view they will be seriously misled. But the same is true of Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding.
This alternative philosophy has an even more venerable pedigree, going back to Aristotle. But it acquired new life in the 20th century when Wittgenstein took the axe to dualism and empiricism. Magee frequently expresses admiration for Wittgenstein: but when he quotes it is from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, not from the mature Philosophical Investigations which offered us liberation from false pictures of the human mind.
It is in relation to an afterlife that Magee is, in my view, too agnostic. He more than once puts the question “Do we cease to exist when we die?” and he tells us that only a being with higher powers than ours could know the answer. He imagines himself being asked, about a loved one, such questions as “Is she an immortal soul?” His answer is “I don’t know . . . I do not know these things even about myself, let alone her.” I believe that he should have answered “No.” We are not immortal souls. We are animals that are not only rational, but also mortal.
In several places Magee expresses his worry about death. This is totally understandable, given that for all he knows he might live on in some totally unknown — and therefore possibly horrendous — form. But he is horrified also by the possibility of annihilation. I find this hard to understand. I do not see my own annihilation as any event of grand tragedy. The universe existed for many millennia before I was born and no doubt it will do so very well for long after I die. And as for me, once I am annihilated, there will be no me to feel any pain, anguish, regret or despair.
Magee’s writing always makes very easy reading. Some object to this, saying that philosophy has no shallow end, and cannot but be difficult. That is true, but Magee is addressing not those who are already in the water, but those who are shivering on the bank wondering whether to dive in. This book may well encourage them to do so. If they believe everything it says, then in my view they will be seriously misled. But the same is true of Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding.
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