Ultimate Questions

Bryan Magee

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780691178127, 9780691170657
• eBook ISBN: 9781400880454
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Epistemology in Philosophy

How to live meaningfully in the face of the unknowable

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.

INDEX

abortion, 122

absurd, in existentialism, 56

aesthetics, 47, 88–94, 113–14

language of, 90–92

value judgements and, 28–29, 50–51, 122–23

afterlife beliefs, 21, 22, 66–68, 101–6

agency, 118

agnosticism, 124–27

religious belief and, 23–26, 114–15

anthropomorphism, 25

“as if” notions, 63, 101–3, 110, 125

asteroid collision, 5

bats, 70

Beckett, Samuel, 111

Beecham, Thomas, 40

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 123

belief, 16

commitment to, 52–53

Hume on, 117–18

knowledge and, 22–26, 113

Locke on, 125

predisposition towards, 115

See also religious beliefs

Berkeley, George, 80

biochemistry, 14

blindness, 43, 59–60, 62–63, 124–25

congenital, 20–21, 60, 68, 83–84

Boadicea, 18

Brahms, Johannes, 2, 123

causality, 19

Chomsky, Noam, 27, 40

colours, 21, 63, 74–75

common sense, 12, 67

conceptualisation, 72–74, 91–92

consciousness, 36, 40, 47, 54, 100–102

conceptualisation of, 92

personal identity and, 49, 99, 100, 105–7

Schrödinger on, 68

sleep and, 95, 100, 113

death, 12–13, 95–96, 98

afterl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• One: Time and Space
• Two: Finding Our Bearings
• Three: The Human Predicament
• Four: Can Experience Be Understood?
• Five: Where Such Ideas Come From
• Six: Personal Reflections
• Seven: Our Predicament Summarized
• Index