On the recommendation above I am reading Confessions of a Philosopher, am a third or so through, and am thoroughly enjoying it. It’s a great format, combining memoir with, in effect, primer, and I will be adding to my pile of TBR imminently.
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Ditto. I preceded it with Ultimate Questions, many of the ideas in which were familiar through his book on Schopenhauer, and Popper is on the way.Originally posted by muzzer View PostComment
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I've just finished "Ultimate Questions" (2017), which I thought was his final book. It's a short and wonderful addition to "Confessions", on the primer side, but I missed the memoir aspect. But now I see he published "Making the Most of It" (2018), which seems to be an even more confessional memoir than "Confessions", going into details of his love life, career failures, etc.:Originally posted by muzzer View Post
In glossy mode, another good primer is "The story of philosophy" (Dorling Kindersley Limited), which I found well worth borrowing from the library. Now I see he updated that in 2016!
Good to see he was so prolific near the end. Last interview here:
Some of his final words:
“I wouldn’t rely on television for my introduction to anything... It seems to me a completely unimportant medium.”
"[politics] was a way of life that I didn’t really want for myself… I realised—and I think this was an aspect of maturing—that the pursuit of power was in some very deep way a mistake.”
"From the beginning, I was looking for ways of making money that didn’t involve my having a job… which is not very easy to find... That was my only interest in television: it would earn me some money while I started writing books.”
"There’s been an attempt to turn everything into light-entertainment, to turn even the news bulletins into entertainment, which has taken the guts out of television, ...”
“people say they went into politics because they wanted to make the world a better place, that’s very foreign to me… I wanted to go into politics because I thought I’d like being in politics.”
"I don’t think of myself as fundamentally an intellectual person.” (!)
"I was dealt a good hand—not a wonderful hand, not a marvellous hand—and I think I’ve lived in such a way as to make the most of the hand I’ve got. But, what I basically wish more than anything else is that I’d had better cards.”
One consolation: “Death will be upon us before we know where we are; and once we are dead it will be forever.”
P.S. Another last interview here :), and perhaps a better one, by Jason Cowley:
"“There aren’t explanations for everything; indeed, there are no explanations for anything, and we should be far more agnostic in our way of living.”Last edited by Mal; 12-08-19, 17:12.Comment
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Not to have to take on power - OK for some, and it would be so nice. But someone has to, because mostly it's in the wrong hands, and always has been.Comment
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