G. E. M. Anscombe

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G. E. M. Anscombe (18 March, 1919 – 5 January, 2001) (born Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, also known as Elizabeth Anscombe) was a British analytic philosopher. A student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, she became an authority on his work, and edited and translated many books drawn from his writings. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, logic, semiotics, and language theory. Her 1958 article "Modern Moral Philosophy", introduced the term "consequentialism" into the English language. She was also a theologian, and contributed extensively to the fields of ethics, especially to the modern revival of virtue ethics.

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Life

G. E. M. Anscombe was born to Gertrude Elizabeth Anscombe and Alan Wells Anscombe, on 18 March, 1919, in Limerick, Ireland (where her father had been posted as an officer in the British army).

She graduated from Sydenham High School in 1937, and went on to read "Mods & Greats" (a course of study in classics, ancient history, and philosophy) at St Hugh's College of the University of Oxford, graduating with a First in 1941. During her first undergraduate year she converted to Roman Catholicism, and remained a lifelong devout Catholic. She garnered controversy when she publicly opposed Britain's entry into WWII, although her father had been a soldier, and her brother was to serve during WWII.

She married Peter Geach, like her a Roman Catholic convert, a student of Wittgenstein, and a distinguished British academic philosopher. Together they reared three sons and four daughters.

After graduating from Oxford, Anscombe was awarded a research fellowship for postgraduate study at Newnham College, Cambridge from 1942 to 1945. While studying at Cambridge she began to attend Ludwig Wittgenstein's lectures. She became an enthusiastic student, feeling that Wittgenstein's therapeutic method helped to free her from philosophical boggles in ways that her training in traditional systematic philosophy could not. As she wrote (in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind, pp. vii-ix, quoted in Monk, 1990, p. 497): Template:Cquote

After her fellowship at Cambridge ended, she was awarded a research fellowship at Somerville College, Oxford, but during the academic year of 1946 - 1947, she continued to travel to Cambridge once a week, together with her fellow student W. A. Hijab, to attend tutorials with Wittgenstein on the philosophy of religion. She became one of Wittgenstein's favorite students and one of his closest friends (Monk [1990] 497-498).

Anscombe visited with Wittgenstein many times after he left Cambridge in 1947, and traveled to Cambridge in April 1951 to visit him on his deathbed. Wittgenstein named her, along with Rush Rhees and Georg Henrik von Wright, as his literary executor, and after his death in 1951, she was responsible for editing, translating, and publishing many of Wittgenstein's manuscripts and notebooks.

Anscombe remained at Somerville College from 1946 to 1970. She was also known for her willingness to face fierce public controversy in the name of her Catholic faith. In 1956, while a research fellow at Oxford University, she protested against Oxford's decision to grant an honorary degree to Harry S. Truman, whom she denounced as a mass murderer for his use of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

She scandalized liberal colleagues with articles defending the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to abortion and contraception, and was arrested twice while protesting outside an abortion clinic in Britain, after abortion had been legalized (albeit with restrictions).

Anscombe was elected Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University in 1970, where she served until her retirement in 1986.

In her later years, Anscombe suffered from heart disease, and was nearly killed by an automobile accident in 1996. She spent her last years in the care of her family in Cambridge. She died, aged 81, with her husband and four of their seven children at her bedside, on 5 January, 2001.

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Defeating C. S. Lewis

As a young philosophy don, Anscombe acquired a reputation as a formidable debater. In 1948 she won a debate against C. S. Lewis at Oxford's Socratic Club over Lewis's argument that naturalism was self-refuting (found in the third chapter of original publication of his book Miracles). Some associates (primarily George Sayer and Derek Brewer) remarked that this loss was so humiliating for Lewis that he abandoned theological argument and turned entirely to devotional writing and children's literature... even though Anscombe herself objected to this portrayal. As a result of the weaknesses pointed out in the contest, Lewis substantially rewrote the chapter for future editions of the book. Anscombe's comments on the matter were thus: Template:Cquote

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Work

In 1942 Anscombe became a postgraduate student at the University of Cambridge, where she met Ludwig Wittgenstein, of whom she became one of the foremost interpreters. She wrote a substantial introduction (1959) to his pre-war Tractatus. Her translation of his other master work, Philosophical Investigations (1953), remains the standard edition in English; she also translated several of his other, lesser works. Her own books include Intention (1957) and three volumes of collected papers, published in 1981: From Parmenides to Wittgenstein; Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind; and Ethics, Religion and Politics.

She was for many years the Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, a position to which she was elected in 1970.

Anscombe is credited with having coined the term "consequentialism". In her 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy", Anscombe wrote: Template:Cquote

Anscombe also coined the term "brute facts", as opposed to institutions. The term had a major role to play in John Searle's philosophy and "speech act" theory.

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Further reading

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Sources

fr:Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe is:G.E.M. Anscombe no:G. E. M. Anscombe pl:Elizabeth Anscombe pt:G.E.M. Anscombe sk:Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombová

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