Georg Henrik von Wright 1916 – 2003
Georg Henrik von Wright was a Finnish philosopher and logician, Wittgenstein's chosen successor at Cambridge, and one of his three literary executors. Returning to Helsinki, he produced a vast body of work in modal and deontic logic, action theory, and the philosophy of the social sciences. His paper Deontic Logic of 1951 founded the formal study of norms, while The Logical Problem of Induction, Norm and Action, and Explanation and Understanding shaped a generation of analytic philosophers. He was an exemplary editor of Wittgenstein's Nachlass and wrote with care on the human condition under the threat of technological and ecological crisis.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Finnish
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Analytic
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Georg Henrik von Wright:
“An act is the bringing about, by an agent, of a change in the world.”
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Attributed to Georg Henrik von Wright:
“Deontic logic is the logic of normative discourse.”
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Attributed to Georg Henrik von Wright:
“Practical reasoning issues in action, not in propositions.”
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Attributed to Georg Henrik von Wright:
“Causality and explanation are two faces of the same understanding.”
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Attributed to Georg Henrik von Wright:
“Norms exist only as the substance of human practices.”