Norman Malcolm 1911 – 1990
Norman Adrian Malcolm was an American philosopher and the principal American interpreter of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. After studies at Nebraska, Harvard, and Cambridge, where he formed a deep friendship with Wittgenstein, he spent his career at Cornell, training a generation of Wittgensteinian philosophers. His warm Memoir of Ludwig Wittgenstein gave a vivid portrait of his teacher, while Dreaming, Memory and Mind, and Knowledge and Certainty applied Wittgensteinian methods to long-standing problems in the philosophy of mind and of the self. His paper Anselm's Ontological Arguments revived philosophical interest in the modal version of the argument.
Key facts
- Nationality
- American
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Analytic
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Norman Malcolm:
“What can be shown cannot be said.”
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Attributed to Norman Malcolm:
“Dreaming is not an experience that is later remembered; it is the recollection itself.”
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Attributed to Norman Malcolm:
“Anselm's modal argument deserves to be taken more seriously than it has been.”
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Attributed to Norman Malcolm:
“Wittgenstein's later philosophy invites us out of the metaphysical fly-bottle.”
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Attributed to Norman Malcolm:
“The grammar of psychological concepts is the proper subject of the philosophy of mind.”