Karl Popper is not, as yet anyway, a household name among the educated, and this fact requires explanation. In this book, Bryan Magee gives a bold, clear outline of Popper's thought which exhibits its systematic unity.

First published in 1974. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Karl Popper has been hailed as the greatest philosopher of all time and as a thinker whose influence is ackowledged by a variety of scholars. This work demonstrates Popper's importance across the whole range of philosophy and provides an introduction to the main themes of philosophy itself.

We human beings had no say in existing--we just opened our eyes and found ourselves here. We have a fundamental need to understand who we are and the world we live in. Reason takes us a long way, but mystery remains. When our minds and senses are baffled, faith can seem justified--but faith is not knowledge. In Ultimate Questions, acclaimed philosopher Bryan Magee provocatively argues that we have no way of fathoming our own natures or finding definitive answers to the big questions we all face. With eloquence and grace, Magee urges us to be the mapmakers of what is intelligible, and to identify the boundaries of meaningfulness. He traces this tradition of thought to his chief philosophical mentors--Locke, Hume, Kant, and Schopenhauer--and shows why this approach to the enigma of existence can enrich our lives and transform our understanding of the human predicament. As Magee puts it, "There is a world of difference between being lost in the daylight and being lost in the dark." The crowning achievement to a distinguished philosophical career, Ultimate Questions is a deeply personal meditation on the meaning of life and the ways we should live and face death.

We human beings had no say in existing--we just opened our eyes and found ourselves here. We have a fundamental need to understand who we are and the world we live in. Reason takes us a long way, but mystery remains. When our minds and senses are baffled, faith can seem justified--but faith is not knowledge. In Ultimate Questions, acclaimed philosopher Bryan Magee provocatively argues that we have no way of fathoming our own natures or finding definitive answers to the big questions we all face. With eloquence and grace, Magee urges us to be the mapmakers of what is intelligible, and to identify the boundaries of meaningfulness. He traces this tradition of thought to his chief philosophical mentors--Locke, Hume, Kant, and Schopenhauer--and shows why this approach to the enigma of existence can enrich our lives and transform our understanding of the human predicament. As Magee puts it, "There is a world of difference between being lost in the daylight and being lost in the dark." The crowning achievement to a distinguished philosophical career, Ultimate Questions is a deeply personal meditation on the meaning of life and the ways we should live and face death.

"Enlightening, exciting . . . The Tristan Chord is quite simply indispensable . . . and should take its place among any Wagnerian's short list of required
reading." -John Rockwell, The New York Times

Richard Wagner's devotees have ranged from the subtlest minds (Proust) to the most brutal (Hitler). The enduring fascination with his works arises not only from his singular fusion of musical innovation and theatrical daring, but also from his largely overlooked engagement with the boldest investigations of modern philosophy. In this radically clarifying book, Bryan Magee traces Wagner's intellectual quests, from his youthful embrace of revolutionary socialism to the near-Buddhist resignation of his final years. Magee shows how abstract thought can permeate music and stimulate creations of great power and beauty. And he unflinchingly confronts the Wagner whose paranoia, egocentricity, and anti-Semitism are as repugnant as his achievements are glorious.

At once a biography of the composer, an overview of his times, and an exploration of the intellectual and technical aspects of music, Magee's lucid study offers the best explanation of W. H. Auden's judgment that Wagner, for all his notoriety, was "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived."

Beginning with the death of Socrates in 399, and following the story through the centuries to more recent figures such as Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, Bryan Magee and fifteen contemporary writers and philosophers provide an accessible and exciting introduction to Western philosophy and its greatest thinkers.

The man whom W. H. Auden called `perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived' has inspired both greater adulation and greater loathing than any other composer. In this penetrating analysis, Bryan Magee outlines the range and depth of Wagner's achievement, and shows how his complex and often erotic music expresses the repressed and highly charged contents of the psyche. He also examines Wagner's detailed stage directions, and the prose works in which he formulated his ideas, and sheds interesting new light on his anti-semitism.

In this inspirational book Bryan Magee tells the story of his discovery of philosophy, and in doing so introduces the subject to his reader. Experiences of everyday life provide discussion of philosophers and explain why certain philosophical questions persistently exercise our minds. With great fluency Magee untangles philosophy, making it seem part of everyone's life. Intensely personal and brimming with infectious enthusiasm, this is a wonderful introduction to philosophy by one of the most elegant and accessible writers on the subject.

Wagner was one of the few major composers who studied philosophy seriously. Bryan Magee places the composer's artistic development in the context of the philosophy of his age, and gives us the first detailed and comprehensive study of the close links between Wagner and the philosophers - from the pre-Marxist socialists to Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. Magee explores the relationship between words and music, between the conscious and the unconscious mind, between art and philosophy. It tackles soberly and judiciously the Wagner whose paranoia, egocentricity and anti-semitism are repugnant, as well as the Wagner of artistic genius. The resulting text illuminates Wagner and the music-dramas in altogether new ways.

The Concrete Solutions series of International Conferences on Concrete Repair began in 2003 with a conference held in St. Malo, France in association with INSA Rennes. Subsequent conferences have seen us partnering with the University of Padua in 2009 and with TU Dresden in 2011. This conference is being held for the first time in the UK, in association with Queen's University Belfast and brings together delegates from 36 countries to discuss the latest advances and technologies in concrete repair. Earlier conferences were dominated by electrochemical repair, but there has been an interesting shift to more unusual methods, such as bacterial repair of concrete plus an increased focus on service life design aspects and modelling, with debate and discussion on the best techniques and the validity of existing methods. Repair of heritage structures is also growing in importance and a number of the papers have focused on the importance of getting this right, so that we may preserve our rich cultural heritage of historic structures. This book is an essential reference work for those working in the concrete repair field, from Engineers to Architects and from Students to Clients.

This book consists of fifteen dialogues between Bryan Magee and some of the outstanding thinkers of the twentieth century. It includes contributions from Isaiah Berlin, Noam Chomsky, W. V. O. Quine, A. J. Ayer, Iris Murdoch, and Herbert Marcuse.

In a significant new contribution to economic history, Dr. Magee examines an important British industry that, like many others, declined in relative importance during the period prior to 1914. He compares Britain's performance in papermaking with its main international rivals of the time, America and Germany, addressing such central subjects as technological change, entrepreneurship and productivity. The book will be invaluable to scholars of economic history as well as those simply interested in papermaking.

This pioneering 1997 study examines the economic development of the British paper industry between 1860 and 1914 - an era in which it is often claimed that the origins of Britain's relative economic decline are first witnessed. For paper-making, this was also a period in which an array of important new forces, including inter alia the development of new raw materials and the move to ever larger scales of production, came on the scene. Gary Bryan Magee looks at the effect of these changes and assesses how effectively the industry coped with the new pressures, drawing upon an extensive range of quantitative and archival sources from Britain, America, and other countries. Along the way, Dr Magee addresses issues central to the understanding of industrial competitiveness, such as technological change, entrepreneurship, productivity, trade policy, and industrial relations.

In this infectiously exciting book, Bryan Magee tells the story of his own discovery of philosophy and not only makes it come alive but shows its relevance to daily life. Magee is the Carl Sagan of philosophy, the great popularizer of the subject, and author of a major new introductory history, The Story of Philosophy. Confessions follows the course of Magee's life, exploring philosophers and ideas as he himself encountered them, introducing all the great figures and their ideas, from the pre-Socratics to Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper, including Wittgenstein, Kant, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, rationalism, utilitarianism, empiricism, and existentialism.

This is a revised and enlarged version of Bryan Magee's widely praised study of Schopenhauer, the most comprehensive book on this great philosopher. It contains a brief biography of Schopenhauer, a systematic exposition of his thought, and a critical discussion of the problems to which it gives rise and of its influence on a wide range of thinkers and artists. For this new edition Bryan Magee has added three new chapters and made many minor revisions and corrections throughout. this new edition will consolidate the book's standing as the definitive study of Schopenhauer. `This is a book of many virtues and few vices...The book reads well. It deserves to be well read....surpass(es) all current English-language treatments of Schopenhauer' David Cartwright, Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch `an ambitious book and, on the whole, a highly readable one. Magee moves with confidence and ability among the connecting structures of philosophy, the history of ideas, the arts, and human psychology' Diane Collinson, Philosophical Quarterly `Magee's study should however not merely be reviewed but also read; for it is throrough, lucid and wide-ranging...a substantial work.' Times Higher Education Supplement `He brings out well the development of the German philosopher's thought, and the fact that in the course of doing so does some philosophising of his own increases the interest of the volume. Further, Schopenhauer's influence on a number of other eminent people is discussed much more at length than is usual in monographs on his philosophy. As for the author's criticism of Schopenhauer, it seems to me sound.' Frederick Copleston, The Month `Philosophers have long known that Schopenhauer was the first of the very few philosophers Wittgenstein studied intensely. Magee supplies the detail of the debt with impressive and original fullness. Bryan Magee may leave himself open to critical nigglings of various degrees of significance by his enthusiastic resolution to stand up for Schopenhauer, and not just to expound from a safe distance. The compensation is that his own excitement is communicated to the reader.' Anthony Quinton, the Times `il convient de saluer et d'apprecier, pour le public qui ne l'aurait pas encore lu, ce livre elegant, suggestif, perspicace...clair, excellent.' P. Trotignon, Revue Philosophique `Bryan Magge's book is...to be welcomed as the most illuminating and admirable study of Schopenhauer's philosophy yet to appear in English.' I. B. Gleaves Wagner `He sets about the task of explaining Schopenahuer's ideas with a commitment and enthusiasm all too rare in philosophical writing, and succeeds admirably in communicating his excitement to his readers.' Sean Sayers, Philosophy and Psychology `This is a wide-ranging bookand Mr Magee's enthusiasm makes it stimulating.' The Economist `Bryan Magee has given us an extremely well-organized book... an accurate and innovative introduction...Its great merit is that it takes Schopenhauer seriously and relates his work to contemporary concerns.' James Moulder, South African Journal of Philosophy.

This is a revised and enlarged version of Bryan Magee's widely praised study of Schopenhauer, the most comprehensive book on this great philosopher. It contains a brief biography of Schopenhauer, a systematic exposition of his thought, and a critical discussion of the problems to which it gives rise and of its influence on a wide range of thinkers and artists. For this new edition Bryan Magee has added three new chapters and made many minor revisions and corrections throughout. This new edition will consolidate the book's standing as the definitive study of Schopenhauer.