The Life and Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (St Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs)

This volume in the St Andrews series contains a collection of essays from leading authors regarding the work of Elizabeth Anscombe, in particular issues in mind and metaphysics, and can be considered a partner work to 2016's The Moral Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (also published by Imprint Academic Ltd.). This collection brings together biographical portraits, personal reminiscences and philosophical studies of Anscombe's thought. It complements a previous volume in the series, The Moral Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe, by dealing more with philosophical methodology, philosophy of mind and action, intentionality and language, and the metaphysics of human beings, as well as biography. These two books together with four earlier volumes of Anscombe's own writings: Human Life, Action and Ethics, Faith in a Hard Ground, From Plato to Wittgenstein and Logic, Truth and Meaning, provide considerable resources for those interested in the work of one of the major philosophers of the twentieth century. Wherein lies her greatness? Among the elements composing this were her intellectual commitment, stamina and toughness. Of themselves these do not make for brilliance, but without them there tends only to be, at best, unsustained cleverness. In addition she had tremendous powers of analysis and argument. She also had a "nose" for fakes and mistakes, not the superficial yet pervasive sort that characterize the work of most philosophers in any period, but the deeper kind that give rise to ways of thinking that seem inescapable until the error and the escape routes are pointed out. -- Back cover