Elizabeth Anscombe

1919–2001 · British (born in Ireland)

Analytic philosophy; action theory; virtue ethics revival

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe was Wittgenstein's student, translator and literary executor, and one of the most formidable analytic philosophers of the twentieth century in her own right. Her 1957 monograph Intention effectively created modern philosophy of action, and her 1958 paper "Modern Moral Philosophy" coined the word "consequentialism" and set off the revival of virtue ethics. A devout Roman Catholic who wore trousers and smoked cigars, she was also a famous public dissenter, opposing Oxford's honorary degree for the president who ordered the atomic bombings.

How to spot them

▸Wittgenstein's pupil, translator of Philosophical Investigations, and one of his three literary executors
▸Coined 'consequentialism'; relaunched virtue ethics; also coined 'brute facts'
▸Intention and the distinction between knowledge by observation and 'practical knowledge' of what one is doing
▸Married to the philosopher Peter Geach; seven children; a combative Catholic moralist
▸Held the Cambridge chair of philosophy once occupied by her teacher, 1970–1986

Key works

A 1957 monograph that founded modern philosophy of action, built on repeatedly asking 'why?' and on a form of knowledge that requires no observation (1957)

Intention — Donald Davidson called it the most important treatment of action since Aristotle.

A 1958 paper that coined the word 'consequentialism', urged ethicists to down tools until they had an adequate philosophy of psychology, and put virtue back at the centre (1958)

'Modern Moral Philosophy' — the starting gun for the twentieth-century revival of virtue ethics.

A privately printed pamphlet attacking Oxford's decision to honour the US president who ordered the atomic bombings of Japan (1957)

Mr Truman's Degree — written after the June 1956 ceremony; her protest at the vote failed, but the pamphlet became famous.

Her 1953 English rendering of her teacher's posthumous masterpiece, the source of the standard English words for its language-games and family resemblances (1953)

Her translation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

A 1971 Cambridge inaugural lecture denying that causation requires necessitating laws, and arguing that a cause can be genuine without determining its effect (1971)

'Causality and Determination' — a direct challenge to the Humean orthodoxy.

A 1958 paper coining the phrase for facts that only obtain against an institutional background, illustrated by a grocer's delivery and an unpaid bill (1958)

'On Brute Facts' — the source of the 'brute facts' terminology later used by John Searle.

Key ideas

Intentional action is action to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' applies — the agent can answer without inferring from evidence
Practical knowledge: an agent knows what they are doing 'without observation', a knowledge that is the cause of what it understands
The shopping-list example: a list carried by a shopper and a list made by a detective following him can contain the same words, but a mismatch is the shopper's fault and the detective's — the seed of what Searle called 'direction of fit'
Modern moral concepts of 'ought', 'duty' and 'obligation' are survivals of a divine-law ethics, unintelligible once its framework is gone
'Consequentialism': her name for the view — which she thought corrupting — that no kind of act is ruled out absolutely, only weighed by its results
Brute facts: facts that hold relative to an institution, so that ordinary physical facts can 'brutely' constitute an institutional one

Quick-fire facts

•Born in Limerick in 1919 to English parents; took a First in Literae Humaniores at St Hugh's College, Oxford, in 1941
•Converted to Roman Catholicism as an undergraduate and married the Catholic philosopher Peter Geach in 1941; they had three sons and four daughters
•Met Wittgenstein at Cambridge in 1942 and became one of his closest associates; he reportedly called her 'old man'
•One of Wittgenstein's three literary executors, with Rush Rhees and Georg Henrik von Wright
•Held the Chair of Philosophy at Cambridge from 1970 until her retirement in 1986 — the chair Wittgenstein had held
•Her 1956 protest against the honorary degree for Harry S. Truman was defeated in Convocation; only a handful voted with her
•As a young philosopher she published An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1959), still a standard guide
•Was arrested more than once protesting at abortion clinics; her 1975 pamphlet Contraception and Chastity defended Humanae Vitae
•She was known for a monocle, cigars and trousers, and for once being asked to leave a Boston restaurant that required women to wear skirts

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Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe
G. E. M. Anscombe — Intention