Saturday, March 7, 2026

Anscombe on Wittgenstein

I have a review forthcoming in Philosophical Investigations of John Berkman's and Roger Teichmann's Anscombe on Wittgenstein: Reminiscences of a Philosophical Friendship. The book is great, especially for the reminiscences from Anscombe (which she titled "Anecdotes"). But the published text differs in places from the original manuscript. Handwriting being what it is, it isn't always easy to be sure, but I think there about sixty places where the mansucript is slightly different from what has been published (which is based on a typescript produced by Luke Gormally, who numbered the paragraphs). It seemed pedantic to list these in the review, but perhaps some people will want to see them, so I thought I would publish them here. (In case you're wondering, I have read the original manuscript and took photos of it all, which I compared with the book.) OK, here's the list:

  1. On p. 121 section 13, last sentence (“He was regarded with some awe in his own family.”) is a separate paragraph in the original.
  2. Gormally's paragraph 72 begins on the same line as the last sentence of 71. I.e., Anscombe writes as if these are part of the same long paragraph.
  3. Similarly, Gormally’s 154 begins on the same line as the end of his 153. This really does seem like a new paragraph in terms of its subject matter, so Gormally is hardly wrong, but it does make it tricky to join the dots between what Anscombe wrote on the page, how Gormally typed it up, and what has now been published (which does not try to copy Gormally’s order).
  4. On p. 153 section 138 the words “at all” appear in the manuscript after “only one I can remember” but are absent in the published version.
  5. On p. 119 (section 3) the book has “someone said” where the manuscript has “one of the Wittgenstein children said”
  6. On p. 120 (section 5) the book has “used to say that he had” where the MS has “used to say he had”
  7. On p. 121 section 12 the second long dash is a comma in the MS
  8. On p. 121 section 13 the word ‘that’ has been added, which is not in the MS. The MS also has a paragraph break, so that the last sentence is its own paragraph
  9. On p. 121 section 14, the MS has a comma after ‘sister’ and after ‘him’. These are missing from the published version.
  10. On p. 123 section 20 the MS has a comma after Salzer
  11. On p. 123 section 22 the MS has the word ‘very’ before ‘friendly’
  12. On p. 124 section 24 there is a long dash where the MS has a comma
  13. On p. 125 section 28 the first word in the MS looks like ‘On’, not ‘Of’. The published text has ‘with not’ where the MS looks more like ‘without,’ although it’s hard to tell. The MS also has the word ‘that’ after ‘I mean’, which is missing in the book
  14. On p. 126 the text presents Anscombe’s wording as ‘porte-welière’ and explains that this means post-delivery. The original looks to me like porte-cochère.
  15. On p. 129 section 42 the word ‘that’ has been inserted after ‘follow’
  16. On p. 130 section 45 a comma has been inserted after ‘me’
  17. On p. 130 section 46, this paragraph begins with an open parenthesis mark in the MS, although there is no closing mark at the end. The published version omits the opening mark.
  18. On p. 131 section 47 is given the Gormally number 189, but I think it should be 196. Gormally 189 is here section 76 on p. 137.
  19. On p. 131 section 49 the word in the MS looks much more like ‘complimented’ than ‘congratulated’
  20. On p. 132 section 50 three words have been rendered as ‘through whim, say’. This is a plausible guess, the writing being very unclear, but I don’t see a w for ‘whim’. Nor a comma after that word. The first word clearly ends with ‘o’, but would Anscombe have spelled ‘through’ as ‘thro’? Perhaps she did. It almost looks like a name, but not one I can make out. The first word looks like Tyro, Dyno, Truro, Two or possibly Geo. The next two look like “him say” or “Lin say”. Was there a furniture maker called something Linsay?
  21. On p. 133 section 55 the MS has a semi-colon after ‘convent’ instead of a full stop, and the h in the following word (‘He’) is not capitalized. There is also a comma after “pleased by” in the MS.
  22. On p. 134 section 57 ‘things’ is ‘thing’ in the MS
  23. On p. 135 section 63 there is no comma after ‘Something’ in the MS
  24. On p. 136 section 70 the MS says “I can’t remember” rather than simply “can’t remember”
  25. On p. 138 section 77 the word ‘could’ looks more like ‘would’ in the MS, and the word rendered as ‘take’ (which makes the most sense, given the context) looks more like ‘late’. I doubt this is a mistake, except on Anscombe’s part, but it does reflect the difficulty of reading her handwriting sometimes.
  26. On p. 138 section 82 the MS has commas before and after “I remember”
  27. On p. 140 section 89 the MS does not have the word ‘that’ before ‘Russell’
  28. On p. 141 section 96 I think there should be a comma after ‘that’ (line 2)
  29. On p. 142 section 96 I think there should be a comma after ‘badly’
  30. On p. 142 section 99 the question mark after ‘strength’ has been supplied by the editors
  31. On p. 145 section 106 the word given as ‘as’ looks like ‘in’ in the MS
  32. On p. 151 section 130 the final sentence begins a new paragraph in the MS. In fact, each half of the equation starts on a new line
  33. On p. 151 section 131 a comma has been added after ‘saying’
  34. On p. 151 section 133 the MS has a comma after “But of course”
  35. On p. 153 section 138 in the MS it looks as though the word ‘in’ appears after ‘smile’, there is no comma after “savagely serious”, a new paragraph begins with “The only one I can remember” and the words “at all” appear after this ‘remember’. They are absent from the printed text.
  36. On p. 153 section 140 the MS appears to have a comma rather than a full stop after 1944 and then the next word (“he’d”) starts with a lower case h. Anscombe seems to write Moral Science Club, which has been corrected to Moral Sciences Club.
  37. On p. 155 section 144 I think there should be a comma after ‘himself’ and a full stop, rather than a comma, after “Yes”.
  38. On p. 157 section the MS has a comma after ‘came’
  39. On p. 158 section 157 the published text is missing the word ‘quite’ after ‘remember’
  40. On p. 158 section 161 the word ‘a’ has been added before ‘sculptor’ and it looks as though an ‘s’ has been omitted after ‘verb’
  41. On p. 159 section 162 the word ‘that’ has been added between ‘thing’ and ‘Wittgenstein’
  42. On p. 160 section 165 the MS says ‘used to’ but ‘would’ is printed in the book instead
  43. On p. 161 section 170 the MS has a comma after “Oh”
  44. On p. 165 section 183 in the MS it looks to me as though Anscombe has crossed out the ‘s’ at the end of ‘remarks’, which is printed as in the plural
  45. On p. 167 section 189 I think the MS has a colon after ‘replied’
  46. On p. 167 section 190 I think there should be a comma after ‘been’
  47. On p. 168 section 192 the text says “and a lot of stuff in one long false note” whereas the MS appears to say “and a lot of stuff is one long false note”
  48. On p. 169 section 195 the text has “And how would it look as if it looked as if the earth rotated on its axis?” while the MS says “And how would it look if it looked as if the earth rotated on its axis?”
  49. On p. 170 section 198 the MS has a dash while the book has a semi-colon
  50. On p. 171 section 200 a comma has been inserted after ‘time’
  51. On p. 172 section 200 the words “we went’ have been omitted after “four o’clock” and the word ‘quarter’ has been used instead of Anscombe’s ¼
  52. On p. 173 section 201 the MS seems to have “Now try and open your eyes!” rather than “Now try to open your eyes!”
  53. On p. 174 section 202 in the MS there is a comma after ‘why’
  54. On p. 175 section 205 a comma has been added after ‘roar’
  55. On p. 176 section 207 the word ‘an’ has been omitted in “fear of an unforeseeable judgment”
  56. On p. 176 section 208 the MS has a comma after ‘know’
  57. On p. 176 section 209 the MS has a semi-colon, not a comma, after ‘time’ (I think) and a comma after ‘unaffected’
  58. On p. 176 section 210 the word written as ‘train’ looks more like ‘tram’ to me
  59. On p. 178 section 214 the word printed as ‘You’re’ looks in the MS as though it could be ‘Your’ (which would not be wrong—instead of saying “You are saying that you could not lie” Wittgenstein would be saying “About your having said that you could not lie…”
  60. On p. 178 section 215 the book has ‘wouldn’t’ but I think the MS might say ‘couldn’t’
  61. On p. 180 section 221 the word ‘I’ has been omitted between ‘which’ and ‘had’
  62. On p. 184 section 228 I think there should be a comma after ‘listened’
  63. On p. 186 section 234 I think instead of “him saying" it should be “his saying”
None of this matters very much, no doubt, but perhaps someone will care. More details (including a missing paragraph) in the review.

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