Bryan Edgar Magee has died (12 April 1930 - 26 July 2019).
He was a British philosopher, broadcaster, politician for the Labour Party and the SDP, and author best known for bringing philosophy to a popular audience.
"One of the most extraordinary things about a human being is that we just wake up in the world and find ourselves here, though what 'here' is is something we never discover. Existence is something that happens to us, and then remains a mystery. There is no question of our having any say in it: a light comes on in a new centre of consciousness and it is another one of us.
We find ourselves not awareness only, but bodies also, and perhaps other things besides - whatever we are, it is certainly complex. And we inherit a going concern. We know nothing about any of it until after it is well under way, by which time we are already a particular person, born a while back to two other persons embedded in particular circumstances; and everything that has happened to us since then constitutes what is already a life; and already we are partially-formed personalities. Everything about the situation is specific in the highest degree, a fate, a destiny, already in full swing when it is imposed on us, so that we ourselves are a fait accompli with which we are presented."
Bryan Magee, Clouds of Glory.