Norman Malcolm (; 11 June 1911 – 4 August 1990) was an American

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

Biography

Malcolm was born in

Selden, Kansas Selden is a city in Sheridan County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 184. History Selden was laid out in 1888. It was named for one of its founders, Selden G. Hopkins. The first post office in Sel ...

. He studied philosophy with O. K. Bouwsma at the

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

, then enrolled as a graduate student at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1933. At

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1938–9, he met

G. E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the founders of analytic philosophy. He and Russell led the turn from ideal ...

and

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

. Malcolm attended Wittgenstein's lectures on the

philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

foundations of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

throughout 1939 and remained one of Wittgenstein's closest friends. Malcolm's memoir of his time with Wittgenstein, published in 1958, is widely acclaimed as one of the most captivating and most accurate portraits of Wittgenstein's remarkable personality. After serving in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

from 1942 to 1945, Malcolm, with his wife, Leonida, and their son, Raymond Charles Malcolm, resided in Cambridge again in 1946–47. He saw a good deal of Wittgenstein during that time, and they continued to correspond frequently thereafter. In 1947, Malcolm joined the faculty at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where he taught until his retirement. In 1949, Wittgenstein was a guest of the Malcolms in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...

. In that year Malcolm introduced O. K. Bouwsma to Wittgenstein. Bouwsma remained close to Wittgenstein until Wittgenstein's death in 1951.

Philosophical work

In 1959, his book ''Dreaming'' was published, in which he elaborated on Wittgenstein's question as to whether it really mattered if people who tell dreams "really had these images while they slept, or whether it merely seems so to them on waking". This work was also a response to Descartes' ''Meditations'

Other than that he is known for propagating the view that

common sense ''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political argu ...

philosophy and

ordinary language Ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is a philosophical methodology that sees traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting how words are ordinarily used to convey meaning in ...

philosophy are the same. He was generally supportive of Moore's theory of knowledge and certitude, though he found Moore's style and method of arguing to be ineffective. His critique of Moore's articles on skepticism (and also on Moore's '

Here is a hand Here is one hand is an epistemological argument created by G. E. Moore in reaction against philosophical skepticism and in support of common sense. The argument takes the following form: * Here is one hand, * And here is another. * There are at l ...

' argument) lay the foundation for the renewed interest in common sense philosophy and ordinary language philosophy. Malcolm was also a defender of a modal version of the ontological argument. In 1960 he argued that the argument originally presented by

Anselm of Canterbury Anselm of Canterbury, OSB (; 1033/4–1109), also called ( it, Anselmo d'Aosta, link=no) after his birthplace and (french: Anselme du Bec, link=no) after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of th ...

in the second chapter of his ''

Proslogion The ''Proslogion'' () is a prayer (or meditation), written by the medieval cleric Saint Anselm of Canterbury in 1077–1078, serving to reflect on the attributes of God in order to explain how God can possess seemingly contradictory qualities. Thi ...

'' was just an inferior version of the argument propounded in chapter three.Norman Malcolm (1960), "Anselm's Ontological Arguments," ''Philosophical Review'', 69:41–62. His argument is similar to those produced by

Charles Hartshorne Charles Hartshorne (; June 5, 1897 – October 9, 2000) was an American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but also contributed to ornithology. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and ...

and

Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic. From 1963 to 198 ...

. Malcolm argued that a God cannot simply exist as a matter of contingency but rather must exist in necessity if at all. He argued that if God exists in contingency then his existence is subject to a series of conditions that would then be greater than God and this would be a contradiction (referring to Anselm's definition of God as That than which Nothing Greater can be Conceived).

Publications

His works include: *''Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir'' *''Moore and Ordinary Language'' *''Wittgenstein: A Religious Point Of View?'' *''Nothing Is Hidden: Wittgenstein's criticism of his early thought'' *''Problems of Mind: Descartes to Wittgenstein'' *''Knowledge and Certainty'' *''Consciousness and Causality'' (with

D. M. Armstrong David Malet Armstrong (8 July 1926 – 13 May 2014), often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functiona ...

) *''Memory and Mind'' *''Dreaming and Skepticism'' * ''Wittgenstein: The Relation of Language to Instinctive Behaviour (J.R.Jones Memorial Lecture) Publisher: University of Wales, Swansea (Dec 1981) '' *''Thought and knowledge'' *''Wittgensteinian themes'' (edited by

Georg Henrik von Wright Georg Henrik von Wright (; 14 June 1916 – 16 June 2003) was a Finnish philosopher. Biography G. H. von Wright was born in Helsinki on 14 June 1916 to Tor von Wright and his wife Ragni Elisabeth Alfthan. On the retirement of Ludwig Wittgenste ...

) and ''Dreaming''.

Biography

Philosophical work

Publications

References

Further reading