The Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe

One of the most important philosophers of recent times, Elizabeth Anscombe wrote books and articles on a wide range of topics, including the ground-breaking monograph Intention. Her work is original, challenging, often difficult, always insightful; but it has frequently been misunderstood,and its overall significance is still not fully appreciated. This book is the first major study of Anscombe's philosophical oeuvre. In it, Roger Teichmann presents Anscombe's main ideas, bringing out their interconnections, elaborating and discussing their implications, pointing out objections anddifficulties, and aiming to give a unified overview of her philosophy. Many of Anscombe's arguments are relevant to contemporary debates, as Teichmann shows, and on a number of topics what Anscombe has to say constitutes a powerful alternative to dominant or popular views. Among the writingsdiscussed are Intention, 'Practical Inference', 'Modern Moral Philosophy', 'Rules, Rights and Promises', 'On Brute Facts', 'The First Person', 'The Intentionality of Sensation', 'Causality and Determination', An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, 'The Question of Linguistic Idealism', and anumber of other pieces, including some that are little known or hard to obtain. A complete bibliography of Anscombe's writings is also included. Ranging from the philosophy of action, through ethics, to philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the philosophy of logic and language, this book is a studyof one of the most significant bodies of work in modern philosophy, spanning more than fifty years, and as pertinent today as ever.

Roger Teichmann is a lecturer in philosophy at Oxford University, teaching at St. Hilda's College. He has written on the philosophy of time, philosophy of logic and language, ethics, philosophy of mind, and of course Anscombe. He was a friend and student of Anscombe's in Cambridge, and among other things has edited a Festschrift for her (Logic, Cause and Action, CUP 2000). He also composes.