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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 June 2020
Elizabeth Anscombe was one of the most gifted and productive philosophers of the decades following the Second World War. Her writings present challenges to readers: some of them are very difficult to comprehend while others seem philosophically-minded yet situated outside of philosophy as such. There are also the issues of whether she had a philosophical method and of the influence of Wittgenstein on the manner of her approach. A summary and estimate of Anscombe’s enduring contributions is presented before exploring the style and aims of her philosophical work. Then two of her writings on religion are examined and their implications for her attitude to philosophy considered.
1 See ‘Morality’ the text of a talk given in 1982 published in C. Marneau ed. Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (London, 1982) and reprinted in Geach, M. & Gormally, L. eds Faith in a Hard Ground: Essays on Religion, Philosophy and Ethics by GEM Anscombe (Exeter: ImprintAcademic, 2008)Google Scholar.
2 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ Philosophy, 33 (124) 1958, reprinted in Geach, M. & Gormally, L. eds Human Life, Action and Ethics: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe (Exeter: ImprintAcademic, 2006)Google Scholar.
3 Intention (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957)
4 Causality and Determination. An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge: University Press, 1971) reprinted in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind: Collected Philosophical Papers of GEM Anscombe Vol. II (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981).
5 ‘The First Person’ in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind op.cit.
6 Contraception and Chastity (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1975) reprinted in M. Geach & L. Gormally eds Human Life, Action and Ethics op. cit.
7 Transubstantiation (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1974) reprinted in M. Geach & L. Gormally eds Faith in a Hard Ground op. cit.
8 ‘Faith’ in Faith in a Hard Ground op. cit.
9 ‘On Brute Facts’ Analysis, 18 (3) 1958, pp. 69–72.
10 Causality and Determination.
11 Intention and ‘Under a Description’ Noûs, 13 (2) 1979), pp. 219–233.
12 Intention.
13 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’.
14 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’.
15 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’.
16 ‘Twenty Opinions Common Among Modern Anglo-American Philosophers’, in Persona, veritá e morale. Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Teologia Morale (Rome: Città Nuova Editrice, 1987) pp. 49–50, reprinted in M. Geach & L. Gormally eds. Faith in a Hard Ground op. cit.
17 Searle, John, ‘How to derive “ought” from “is”’ Philosophical Review 73 (1) 1964, pp. 43–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The reference runs as follows: ‘For a discussion of this distinction see G. E. M. Anscombe, “Brute Facts”, Analysis (1958).’.
18 ‘On Brute Facts’ op. cit., 71.
19 Aristotle, Physics II, 2 & 3 translated C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2018) 23–4.
20 'Under a Description’, op. cit. note 11, 219.
21 155d.
22 982b12.
23 Introduction to G.E.M. Anscombe, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind p. vii.
24 Introduction to M. Geach & L. Gormally eds. Human Life, Action and Ethics p. xiii.
25 Diamond, Cora ‘Reading the Tractatus with GEM Anscombe’ in Diamond, Reading Wittgenstein with Anscombe, Going On to Ethics (Cambridge, MA.: 2019) Ch. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 In Haldane, J. ed. The Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2019)Google Scholar.
27 Op. cit p. 116.
28 Rhees, Rush, ‘The Study of Philosophy’ in Without Answers (London: Routledge, 1969) 169Google Scholar.
29 She writes ‘The truth of this conception [that causation is some kine of necessary connection] is hardly debated. It is, indeed, a bit of Weltanschauung: it helps to form a cast of mind which is characteristic of our whole culture’. Op. cit. note 4, 2.
30 Chesterton, G.K., The Everlasting Man in Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton Vol. II (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986) 147–8Google Scholar.
31 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations trans. GEM Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).
32 ‘Grounds of Belief’ in M. Geach & L. Gormally eds. Logic, Truth and Meaning: Writings by G.E.M. Anscombe (Exeter: ImprintAcdemic, 2015).
33 See Thompson, Michael ‘Apprehending Human Form’ in O'Hear, A. ed. Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.
34 ‘Belief and Thought’ in Logic, Truth and Meaning, op. cit., 151.
35 Op. cit.
36 ‘Necessity and Truth’ in in From Parmenides to Wittgenstein: Collected Philosophical Papers Vol I (Oxford: Blackwell. 1981), 84.
37 She did engage with the question of the rationality of religious belief and the case for theism privately with Anthony Kenny and Philippa Foot but failed to persuade either of the truth of theism or a fortiori of that of Catholic Christianity. Anthony Kenny recalls that ‘From time to time Elizabeth would lament to me that she felt quite unable to offer Philippa a proof of the existence of God’; see Kenny, ‘Anscombe in Oxford’ in Haldane ed. The Life and Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (Imprint), 2019.
38 Ethics, Religion and Politics: Collected Philosophical Papers Vol III (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981) ‘Introduction’ vii-viii.
39 Collected Papers III 108; Faith in a Hard Ground 86.
40 Collected Papers III 109; Faith in a Hard Ground 87.
41 I am completing the editing of a volume of essays by Dummett (many previously unpublished) titled Society, Ethics and Religion, ‘Transubstantiation’ will be included in that.
42 Dummett, Michael, ‘The Intelligibility of Eucharistic Doctrine’, in Abraham, William J. and Holzer, Steven W. eds The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in Honour of Basil Mitchell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)Google Scholar.
43 Summa Theologiae, Second and Revised Edition [hereafter ST] translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province ((London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne,1920) Ia, q1. a8, response.
44 Collected Papers III 108–9; Faith in a Hard Ground 86.
45 ST III, q75, a1, ad 3.
46 Collected Papers III 107; Faith in a Hard Ground 86.
47 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations I, 5–7.
48 Collected Papers III 113; Faith in a Hard Ground 11.
49 ‘Faith’ p.
50 Op. cit.
51 ST II, IIae, q2, a10, ad 2.
52 ‘Necessity and Truth’ in From Parmenides to Wittgenstein: Collected Philosophical Papers 84.
53 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ in Human Life, Action and Ethics 188.
54 ‘Human Essence’ in Human Life, Action and Ethics, 27. op. cit.
55 Anscombe, ‘Misinformation: What Wittgenstein Really Said’ The Tablet 203, 1954, 13
56 ‘Twenty Opinions’ op. cit., 66.
57 See Kenny, ‘Anscombe in Oxford’ in Haldane ed. The Life and Work of Elizabeth Anscombe.
58 ‘The Simplicity of the Tractatus’ in M. Geach and L. Gormally eds From Plato to Wittgenstein: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe (Exeter: ImprintAcademic, 2011), 177.
59 On this see Anscombe, ‘The Immortality of the Soul’ in Faith in a Hard Ground, ‘Analytical Philosophy and the Spirituality of Man’ in Human Life, Action and Ethics, and ‘The Existence of the Soul’ in R. Varghese ed. Great Thinkers on Great Questions (Oxford: Oneworld, 1998); and J. Haldane ‘Anscombe and Geach on Mind and Soul’ in Haldane ed. Life and Work of Anscombe.
60 See ‘Why Anselm's Proof in the Proslogion is not an Ontological Argument’ and ‘Russelm or Anselm?’ in M. Geach and L. Gormally eds From Plato to Wittgenstein: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe (Exeter: ImprintAcademic, 2011).
61 ‘GK. Chesterton’ in Graham Greene Collected Essays (London: Bodley Head, 1969) 136.
