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U L T I M A T E Q U E S T I O N S Ultimate Questions Bryan Magee PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Princeton and Oxford Copyright © 2016 by Bryan Magee Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Magee, Bryan. Ultimate questions / Bryan Magee. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-17065-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Human beings. 2. Philosophical anthropology. 3. Ontology. 4. Philosophy. I. Title. BD450.M255 2016 128—dc23 2015034960 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available This book has been composed in ITC Galliard Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 C O N T E N T S O N E Time and Space 1 T W O Finding Our Bearings 17 T H R E E The Human Predicament 33 F O U R Can Experience Be Understood? 59 F I V E Where Such Ideas Come From 69 S I X Personal Reflections 87 S E V E N Our Predicament Summarized 105 Index 129 U L T I M A T E Q U E S T I O N S O N E Time and Space WHAT WE CALL CIVILISATION HAS EXISTED FOR SOME- thing like six thousand years. We are accustomed to thinking of this as an exceedingly long time. Some of us have a vague outline of it in our heads. In my part of the world this usually starts with the Old Testa- ment of the Bible, followed or accompanied by the rise of Greek civilisation, which was followed by the Roman Empire— each of which lasted for hundreds of years. Then came the thousand years of the Mid- dle Ages. This ended with the Renaissance, which was followed by the Reformation, followed by the Enlightenment, then by the Industrial Revolution
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