13 OCTOBER 1984, Page 23

New philosophy

Sir: Shakespeare is one thing, professional philosophy is another (Letters, 6 October). Many of us have no difficulty with Hobbes; it is contemporary philosophers we are unable to read, with a few shining excep- tions. What publishers ought to do is to have them translated into the style of Hobbes or Sir Thomas Browne, or into Latin.

Peter Levi

Austin's Farm, Stonesfield, Oxon

P.S. It is music not magic that is an alien world to Iris Murdoch (Television, 6 October).