Friday, October 16, 2015

Link: Amazing Philosophy Interviews with Bryan Magee

I just wanted to share a very special link with any readers who happen upon my blog.

Several years ago (probably about five or so years ago) I worked as a mascot for Liberty Tax Service in southern California. At the same time I was going to community college, and I had decided by this point that I wanted to study philosophy. I had only begun to learn about analytic philosophy. While waving a sign dressed up in a statue of liberty costume can be fun at first, after several hours one might feel a need for intellectual stimulation. Hence, I would download philosophy talks from several different sources, and one of them was here.

There are many full-length interviews on this Youtube channel, all available for free. They each consist of a dialogue between Bryan Magee and one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. They are very interesting, and are especially helpful in the case that one is not already familiar with the concepts being discussed (though even then they are still fun to listen to). If you're not familiar with some area of philosophy they can give you a quick crash-course on the topic. I really recommend checking them out. Here is one I remember enjoying a lot, with A.J. Ayer talking about logical positivism. One of the best lines is when Magee asks, "What do you think was the biggest issue with logical positivism?" and Ayer replies, "Well, it was all false." (Part 4, 6:26)

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