Georg Henrik von Wright explained

Georg Henrik von Wright
Birth Date:14 June 1916
Birth Place:Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland
Death Place:Helsinki, Finland
Era:20th-century philosophy
Region:Western philosophy
School Tradition:Analytic philosophy
Main Interests:Modal logic, philosophy of action, philosophy of language, Epistemology, philosophy of science
Notable Ideas:Deontic logic
Myth of Progress
Education:University of Helsinki
(1934–1937, 1939–1941;
PhD, 1941)
University of Cambridge
(graduate student, 1939)
Institutions:University of Cambridge
University of Helsinki
Cornell University
Influences:Eino Kaila, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Sanders Peirce, Oswald Spengler, R. B. Braithwaite, G. E. Moore, Jürgen Habermas
Influenced:Karl-Otto Apel, Peter Hacker
Academic Advisors:Eino Kaila
Doctoral Students:Jaakko Hintikka

Georg Henrik von Wright (in Swedish ˈjěːɔrj ˈhɛ̌nːrɪk fɔn ˈvrɪkːt/; 14 June 1916 – 16 June 2003) was a Finnish philosopher.

Biography

G. H. von Wright[1] was born in Helsinki on 14 June 1916 to Tor von Wright and his wife Ragni Elisabeth Alfthan.

On the retirement of Ludwig Wittgenstein as professor at the University of Cambridge in 1948, von Wright succeeded him.[2] He published in English, Finnish, German, and Swedish, belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland. Von Wright was of both Finnish and 17th-century Scottish ancestry,[3] and the family was raised to nobility in 1772.[4]

Work

Von Wright's writings come under two broad categories. The first is analytic philosophy and philosophical logic in the Anglo-American vein. His 1951 texts An Essay in Modal Logic and "Deontic Logic" were landmarks in the postwar rise of formal modal logic and its deontic version. He was an authority on Wittgenstein, editing his later works. He was the leading figure in the Finnish philosophy of his time, specializing in philosophical logic, philosophical analysis, philosophy of action, philosophy of language, epistemology, and the close study of Charles Sanders Peirce.

The other vein in von Wright's writings is moralist and pessimist. During the last twenty years of his life, under the influence of Oswald Spengler, Jürgen Habermas and the Frankfurt School's reflections about modern rationality, he wrote prolifically. His best known article from this period is entitled "The Myth of Progress" (1993), and it questions whether our apparent material and technological progress can really be considered "progress" (see Myth of Progress).

Awards

In the last year of his life, he was awarded several honorary degrees, including one by the University of Bergen.[5] He also was awarded the Swedish Academy Finland Prize in 1968.

Publications

Von Wright edited posthumous publications by Wittgenstein, which were published by Blackwell (unless otherwise stated):

Von Wright also edited extracts from the diary of David Pinsent, also published by Wiley-Blackwell:

*For more complete publication details see "Bibliography of the Writings of Georg Henrik von Wright" (in Schilpp, 1989) and "The Georg Henrik von Wright-Bibliography" (2005).[9]

Sources

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. An explanation of the von Wright name is given in "Georg Henrik von Wright: Intellectual Autobiography" (in: Schilpp, 1989): "Around the year 1650, the earliest known members of my family had to leave Scotland because, it is said, they had sided with King Charles against Cromwell. They settled in Narva in Estonia, which was then a province under Swedish rule. Georg(e) Wright there begat Henrik Wright, who fought in the armies of Charles XII and after a long and eventful life died in his home in Finland, another part of the old Swedish realm. Henrik Wright's son Georg Henrik was, together with his three other sons, raised to noble rank after the royal coup d'etat of 1772. This was how the odd combination of 'von' and 'Wright' originated."
  2. News: Hacker . P. M. S. . Peter Hacker . 4 July 2003 . Obituary: Georg Henrik von Wright . . 5 July 2020.
  3. Web site: Georg Wrightin jälkeläisiä . Suomen Sukututkimusseura . 24 April 2009 . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20110720181246/http://suvut.genealogia.fi/wrights/JohanPetterWrightinjaNilsWrightinjalkelaisia.pdf . 20 July 2011 . Finnish .
  4. Finlands ridderskaps och adels kalender 1992, p. 670, 672. Esbo 1991.
  5. News: 17 January 2002 . Nytt om navn . no . 14 . Aftenposten.
  6. Wright, Georg Henrik von. The logical problem of induction. Acta philosophica fennica, vol. 3. Societas Philosophica, Helsinki (Helsingfors) 1941. [second revised edition, 1957]
  7. Web site: Gifford Lecture Series – Books. https://web.archive.org/web/20080621141649/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPVARG&Cover=TRUE. dead. 21 June 2008. 21 June 2008. 26 February 2019.
  8. Web site: Norm and Action. 18 August 2014. The Gifford Lectures. 26 February 2019.
  9. 2005 . The Georg Henrik von Wright-Bibliography . . 36 . 1 . 155–210 . 10.1007/s10838-005-1182-1 . 0925-4560 . 25171310 . 189844182 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160807014125/http://www.helsinki.fi/wwa/vonWright_bibliography_springer.pdf . 7 August 2016 . JSTOR.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Georg Henrik von Wright".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.