As well as being Shirley Williams' first husband, Bernard Williams was arguably the foremost British moral philosopher of the late 20th century.
I met him round about 1980, while I was doing my philosophy degree at York. We had a philosophy society and would ask eminent philosophers for dinner and a bit of discussion afterwards. Bernard Williams was one of the guests I recall, and another was a young American called Daniel Dennett.
You can hear Bernard Williams above discussing linguistic philosophy with Bryan Magee. Click on the arrow to play a short clip I have selected, or go to YouTube to watch the whole programme.
Williams is a wonderfully intelligent and lucid speaker, but what worries me, watching him today, is the extent to which he looks and sounds like a hugely erudite version of Nigel Farage.
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