Abstract

Presented here is the transcript of a BBC radio broadcast by Elizabeth Anscombe that was recorded in May 1953 – the month when Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations appeared in England for the first time. In her radio talk, Anscombe provides some biographical and philosophical background for reading the Philosophical Investigations. She addresses the importance of the Tractatus and of the literary qualities of Wittgenstein’s writing. Anscombe warns that it would be fruitless to adopt slogans from Wittgenstein without insight. She also calls it a misunderstanding to think that Wittgenstein had championed something like the Ordinary Language Philosophy as it was practised at the time of the recording.

Highlights

  • In October 1944, after a prolonged leave of absence during the Second World War, Wittgenstein resumed lecturing at Cambridge University

  • Among the attendees of his lectures that dealt with the philosophy of psychology was Elizabeth Anscombe, who had come to Cambridge with a studentship from Newnham College (Wittgenstein 2003: 355–356)

  • Hugh’s College in Oxford, but it was only in Wittgenstein’s classes that she experienced an extraction of the “central nerve” of her philosophical perplexities (Anscombe 1981: xiii–xiv)

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Summary

Introduction

In October 1944, after a prolonged leave of absence during the Second World War, Wittgenstein resumed lecturing at Cambridge University. This makes the BBC radio talk a valuable source for learning about Anscombe’s understanding of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and about the standards according to which she measured her translation She says, for instance, that translating Wittgenstein is difficult, because his style is at the same time literary and colloquial and that this combination does not work in English. Being broadcast in the heyday of the “Ordinary Language Philosophy” at Oxford, Anscombe was keen to distinguish Wittgenstein’s philosophy from this philosophical movement She argued against a tendency in the upcoming historiography of the analytical tradition that presented Wittgenstein primarily as Bertrand Russell’s student who had elaborated his teacher’s logical atomism and paved the way for the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle (cf Conant 2015). In her talk for the BBC, Anscombe took the opportunity to champion both this line of philosophical heredity (Frege– Tractatus–Philosophical Investigations) as well as the unique freshness of method and style in the writings that Wittgenstein had left behind

Editorial Note
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Biographical Note

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