G.E.M. Anscombe was a student of Wittgenstein’s. She translated his Philosophical Investigations.
I’ve already mentioned that M.W. Rowe’s biography of J.L. Austin includes some fine portraits of people who played roles in the history of philosophy after World War II. His sketch of Anscombe is another example:
Most unusually, in the intensely stuffy, pre-feminist, and conventional atmosphere of the 1950s Oxford, she simply didn’t care how other people saw her. She had no thought of using ‘Mrs.’ or taking her husband’s surname; she was fond of four-letter words …; she invariably — an unusually for the time — wore trousers, and when the doorman of an expensive Toronto restaurant explained that she could not enter wearing trousers, she simply took them off in front of him.
In the days when I was a newspaper editor, I hated to read profiles and obituaries of people in academic circles that provided endless lists of publications, lectures and committee assignments but failed to give a sense of personality. Even with limited space, it’s possible to do better.
• Source: M.W. Rowe, J.L. Austin: Philosopher & D-Day Intelligence Officer; Oxford University Press, 2023, p. 558.
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