From Plato to Wittgenstein: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe

by G E M Anscombe, Mary Geach (Editor), Luke Gormally (Editor)

Overview

More treasures from the archive of papers left by philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, edited by her daughter and son-in-law, philosophers Mary Geach and Luke Gormally. This volume collects a number of published and unpublished papers by Elizabeth Anscombe in which she engages with the thought of major philosophers of the past. Philosophers featured include Plato, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845402334
Publisher:	Imprint Academic (Ips)
Publication date:	10/01/2011
Series:	St Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	5.35(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Anscombe (1919–2001) read classics and philosophy at St Hugh's College, Oxford from 1937 to 1941 in which year she married the philosopher Peter Geach. She subsequently researched in philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge where she became a student and friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein. One of his literary executors, she played a large part in editing his unpublished works and was their principal English translator. In 1946 she returned to Oxford as a UniversityLecturer in 1951. From 1970 until her retirement in 1986 she held the Chair of Philosophy at Cambridge.

Table of Contents

Preface Luke Gormally ix

Introduction Mary Geach xiii

Part 1 Ancient, Medieval and Modern

1 The origin of Plato's Theory of Forms 1

2 On Piety, or: Plato's Euthyphro 11

3 Plato, soul and 'the unity of apperception' 25

4 Why Anselm's Proof in the Proslogion is not an ontological argument 35

5 Russelm or Anselm? 45

6 Truth: Anselm or Thomas? 51

7 Truth: Anselm and Wittgenstein 71

8 Anselm and the unity of truth 77

9 How can a man be free? Spinoza's thought and that of some others 83

10 Hume on causality: introductory 95

Part 2 Recent and Contemporary

11 Frege, Wittgenstein and Platonism 127

12 On Russell's Theory of Descriptions 137

13 Ludwig Wittgenstein 157

14 The simplicity of the Tractatus 171

15 Wittgenstein's 'two cuts' in the history of philosophy 181

16 On the form of Wittgenstein's writing 187

17 A Theory of Language? 193

18 Wittgenstein: Whose Philosopher? 205

19 Was Wittgenstein a conventionalist? 217

20 Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language 231

Index 247

Editorial Reviews

"This volume is the third in the series and brings together twenty essays on a wide range of thinkers including Plato, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Spinoza, Hume on Causality and Wittgenstein."

Scientific and Medical Network

"From Plato to Wittgenstein is the third book of a very welcome series of recently edited books featuring mostly unpublished or uncollected papers by Elizabeth Anscombe… [T]his volume of Anscombe's papers shows, more perhaps than any other, the fundamental influence Wittgenstein had on her work… The editors Mary Geach and Luke Gormally are to thank for providing access to the writings of this major philosopher of the twentieth century."

Philosophy in Review, 2013, no. 1 - Valérie Aucouturier

"From Plato to Wittgenstein is the third book of a very welcome series of recently edited books featuring mostly unpublished or uncollected papers by Elizabeth Anscombe… [T]his volume of Anscombe's papers shows, more perhaps than any other, the fundamental influence Wittgenstein had on her work… The editors Mary Geach and Luke Gormally are to thank for providing access to the writings of this major philosopher of the twentieth century."

Philosophy in Review, 2013, no. 1 - Valérie Aucouturier