37 Facts About Bryan Magee

Bryan Edgar Magee was a British philosopher, broadcaster, politician and author, best known for bringing philosophy to a popular audience.

Bryan Magee was close to his father but had a difficult relationship with his abusive and overbearing mother.

Bryan Magee was evacuated to Market Harborough in Leicestershire, during World War II, but when he returned to London, much of Hoxton had been bombed flat.

Bryan Magee was educated at Christ's Hospital school on a London County Council scholarship.

Bryan Magee later became an honorary fellow at Keble College.

At Oxford, Bryan Magee had mixed with poets as well as politicians and in 1951 published a volume of verse through the Fortune Press.

Bryan Magee had expected to hate America but found that he loved it.

Bryan Magee taught philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford for a period but was not enamoured of the analytic philosophy then in vogue there.

Bryan Magee returned to Britain with hopes of becoming a Labour Member of Parliament.

Bryan Magee twice stood unsuccessfully for Mid Bedfordshire, at the 1959 general election and the 1960 by-election, and instead took a job presenting the ITV current affairs television programme This Week.

Bryan Magee was eventually elected MP for Leyton at the February 1974 general election.

In Making the Most of It, Bryan Magee wrote that he decided that the Commons was not suitable for him when he was sitting next to Renee Short, as she constantly interrupted a Conservative to call him a "twit".

Bryan Magee resolved not to spend much time on Parliamentary debates, and preferred to make use of the Commons library for his own research and to act efficiently on correspondence from his constituents.

Bryan Magee sometimes went out to the theatre on an evening and returned to Parliament in time to vote, having missed the debate.

Bryan Magee was on the right of the Labour Party: he opposed nationalisation, nuclear disarmament and friendly relations with the Communist countries.

Bryan Magee stated that he "detested" Harold Wilson as devoid of principle, and criticised Callaghan for not understanding the role of negotiations with trade unions.

Early in Thatcher's career, Bryan Magee had friendly relations with her and the two discussed Karl Popper's philosophy, but he later described her as "limited, narrow, even blinkered".

From 1981, Bryan Magee found himself out of tune with the Labour Party's direction under Michael Foot, and he decided to leave after he could not bring himself to oppose the Thatcher Government's agenda of curtailing the power of trade unions.

Bryan Magee lost his seat at the 1983 general election.

Bryan Magee contributed to the 1980 book Wicked Beyond Belief, which was published three weeks before David Cooper was released from prison.

Bryan Magee returned to writing and broadcasting which, indeed, he had continued during his parliamentary career and would serve on various boards and committees.

Bryan Magee notably resigned as chairman of the Arts Council music panel in 1994 in protest at funding cuts.

Bryan Magee returned to scholarship at Oxford, first as a fellow at Wolfson, then at New College.

Bryan Magee was, from 1984, a senior research fellow in the History of Ideas at King's College London and, from 1994, a visiting professor.

Bryan Magee found more time to write classical music reviews and worked on his own compositions.

Bryan Magee admitted that, while his own work was "whistleable", it was "inherently sentimental".

In 1978 Bryan Magee presented 15 dialogues with noted philosophers for BBC Television in a series called Men of Ideas.

Between the two series, Bryan Magee released the first edition of the work he regarded as closest to his "academic magnum opus": The Philosophy of Schopenhauer.

The book was involved in a libel lawsuit as a result of Bryan Magee repeating the rumour that Ralph Schoenman, a controversial associate of Bertrand Russell during the philosopher's final decade, had been planted by the CIA in an effort to discredit Russell.

Bryan Magee emphasizes the importance of Schopenhauer's philosophy as a serious attempt to solve philosophical problems.

In 2016, approaching his 86th birthday, Bryan Magee had his book Ultimate Questions published by Princeton University.

Bryan Magee is proof that for some, the wonder never dies, it only deepens.

In 2018 Bryan Magee, then living in one room in a nursing home in Oxford, was interviewed by Jason Cowley of New Statesman and discussed his life and his 2016 book Ultimate Questions.

Bryan Magee said that he believed he lacked originality and, until Ultimate Questions, had struggled to make an original contribution to philosophy, saying:.

Bryan Magee went on to discuss his continuing interest in politics and current affairs and to describe the Brexit yes vote as a "historic mistake".

In 1953, Bryan Magee was appointed to a teaching job in Sweden and while there met Ingrid Soderlund, a pharmacist in the university laboratory.

Bryan Magee died on 26 July 2019, at the age of 89, at St Luke's Hospital in Headington, Oxford, the care home in which he had spent his final years.