Brian McGuinness (22 October 1927 – 23 December 2019) was a

Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...

scholar best known for his translation, with

David Pears __NOTOC__ David Francis Pears, FBA (8 August 1921 – 1 July 2009) was a British philosopher renowned for his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein. An Old Boy of Westminster School,David Pears: philosopher'' (obituary) ''The Times,'' 3 July 2009, Archiv ...

, of the ''Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus''. He was christened with the forenames "Bernard Francis" but changed his name to "Brian" in his youth. He commonly published, and was cited, as B. F. McGuinness. Formerly a tutee of RM Hare, McGuinness was a Fellow and Tutor at Queen's College in

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

from 1953 to 1988, and took a post at the

Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is an independent research institute in the field of the humanities and social and behavioural sciences founded in 1970. The instit ...

. In 1990, he became a professor at the

University of Siena The University of Siena ( it, Università degli Studi di Siena, abbreviation: UNISI) in Siena, Tuscany, is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called ''Studium Senese'', the institution was founded in 1240 ...

, Italy. From 1990 to 1993, he was director of the faculty of philosophy and social sciences of this university. During his time at Queen's, he was an invited speaker at the Oxford Socratic Club, speaking with J. D. Mabbott on "The Problem of Free Will" on 14 November 1955.

Family

His son,

Paddy McGuinness Patrick Joseph McGuinness (born 14 August 1973) is an English actor, comedian and television presenter. He rose to fame with the help of Peter Kay, who invited him to appear in his programmes ''That Peter Kay Thing'', ''Phoenix Nights'' and ''Ma ...

, is a former British civil servant who was the Deputy

National Security Adviser A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...

for Intelligence.

Select bibliography

Books authored

* ''Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig, 1889-1921'', (1988) *(with Guido Frongia) '' Wittgenstein: A Bibliographical Guide'' (1990) *''Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers,'' (2002).

Select papers

"The Mysticism of the Tractatus"
''

Philosophical Review ''The Philosophical Review'' is a quarterly journal of philosophy edited by the faculty of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University and published by Duke University Press (since September 2006). Overview The journal publishes original ...

,'' vol. 75 (1966), pp. 305–28.
"Philosophy of Science in the Tractatus"
''Revue Internationale de Philosophie'', vol. 23 (1969), pp. 155–64.
"Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein's Notes on Logic"
''Revue Internationale de Philosophie'', vol. 26 (1972), pp. 444–60.

Works edited/translated

*(with David Pears) Ludwig Wittgenstein: ''

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define the ...

'', (1961) *Felix Kaufmann: ''The Infinite in Mathematics: Logico-Mathematical Writings'', (1978) *Hans Hahn: ''Empiricism, Logic and Mathematics: Philosophical Papers'', (1980) *Gottlob Frege: ''Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic and Philosophy'', (1984) *Ernst Mach: ''Principles of the Theory of Heat: Historically and Critically Elucidated'', (1986) *''Unified science. The Vienna monograph series, originally edited by Otto Neurath, now in an English edition''. (1987) *(with J. Schulte) Friedrich Waismann, Josef Schächter, Moritz Schlick: ''Ethics and the will: Essays'', (1994) *(with Gianluigi Oliveri) ''The Philosophy of Michael Dummett'', (1994) *(with Gianluigi Oliveri) Karl Menger: ''Reminiscences of the Vienna Circle and the Mathematical Colloquium'' (1994). *(with George Henrik von Wright) ''Ludwig Wittgenstein:'' ''Cambridge Letters'', (1995) ** ''Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911-1951'' (2008) *''Language, Logic, and Formalization of Knowledge'': ''Coimbra Lecture and Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Siena in September 1997'', (1998)

References

External links

"A Tapestry: Susan Edwards-McKie Interviews Professor Dr B. F. McGuinness on the Occasion of His 90th Birthday"
Susan Edwards-McKie & Brian McGuinness, ''Nordic Wittgenstein Review'' 6 (2):85-90 (2017)
November 2017 laudatio
by Josef Mitterer given on the occasion of McGuinness receiving an honorary doctorate from the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:McGuinness, Brian 1927 births 2019 deaths 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century British philosophers Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Analytic philosophers British logicians British male non-fiction writers Fellows of The Queen's College, Oxford Institute for Advanced Study faculty James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Philosophers of language Philosophers of logic Philosophers of mathematics Philosophers of science Philosophers of social science Academic staff of the University of Siena Wittgensteinian philosophers