Throughout her life, Anscombe was inspired by many philosophers, ancient and modern. Aristotle, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Thomas Aquinas were three key sources of inspiration. However, she created new and original work which revolutionised action theory and moral, religious and ethical philosophy.
This piece could have used some proofing. It's Literae Humaniores, not Literae Humanities. And I hardly think we need to be reminded that the late Aristotle was an ancient philosopher.
Interesting to read that "in life Wittgenstein disliked female academics", mostly because one wonders what "in life" is supposed to be in contrast to.
ReplyDeleteI am fairly sure that Intention makes no mention at all of contraception. It is 94 pages, so a bit long to read through after work. But I have read it twice, and I think that any such mention would have stuck in my memory. As for Harry Truman's honorary degree, I think that the "after" is definitely "post" and not at all "propter". Intention is an exploration of what we mean by intention, not particularly a work of moral philosophy. Far better judges than I am have said good things about it; but quite a few works could be named as arguably the most important work of 20th Century philosophy, depending on how long one wished to argue.
It appears to me that the producers of cutting-edge scholarship at OUPblog should break out the whetstone.
You're right. The peculiar "in life" escaped my attention. I haven't read Intention, or anything else by her. The focus of the philosophy courses I took (more than I took for my major) was existential phenomenology (and that within a context of Thomism).
ReplyDeleteOne can see an instance of Ms Anscombe‘s consideration of “intention” in doing moral philosophy in her essay “Contraception and Chastity”.
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