Bryan Magee - Man of Ideas

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Archive on 4: Bryan Magee - Man of Ideas

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Bryan Magee - Man of Ideas

Angie Hobbs remembers Bryan Magee, who brought philosophy onto TV and radio in the 1970s.

Remembering Bryan Magee, who brought philosophy onto TV and radio in the 1970s, and asking where philosophy is in society today. Featuring Angie Hobbs, Simon Callow and Lord Owen.

Philosophy is often thought of as being abstract, difficult and, well, ‘dead’. 

Few people in the UK have ever managed to help philosophers reach a wider audience than Bryan Magee, whose BBC interviews with leading philosophers were primetime in the 1970s and 80s. For Magee, far from being a fusty academic discipline with no real world relevance, philosophy was an existential matter of immediate importance.

Magee’s was a life rich with ideas and impact, including nine years as an MP. His legacy and reputation has, however, largely been forgotten today. This edition of Archive On 4 will examine the life and legacy of a man who helped philosophy onto British TV and radio. And, importantly, it will ask what place popular philosophy and public intellectualism occupies in today’s culture, in an age of fragmented, divisive, and discombobulating media discourse.

Presenter Angie Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, receives expert analysis and remembrance from a range of contributors:
- Simon Callow, a fan and then friend of Magee’s.
- Henry Hardy, Magee’s executor.
- Barry Lam, the host of Hi-Phi Nation, a popular podcast about philosophy.
- MM McCabe, a professor who’s getting philosophy into prisons.
- Mark Nayler, who is working on a biography of Magee.
- Lord David Owen, a colleague of Magee’s in politics.
- Peter Singer, a philosopher who famously was interviewed by Magee.

We hear Magee in his own words too. Archive material is drawn extensively from his BBC output, including Conversations With Philosophers, Men Of Ideas, and The Great Philosophers, featuring philosophical debates with the likes of Noam Chomsky, Sir Karl Popper, and Iris Murdoch.

With thanks to Hay Festival for additional archive material.

Producers: Jude Shapiro
Executive Producer: Jack Howson
Mix Engineer: Mike Woolley

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