Oswald Hanfling (21 December 1927 – 25 October 2005) was an English philosopher who worked from 1970, until his death, at the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

in the UK.

Early life

Oswald Hanfling was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

in 1927. His parents were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and when their business was vandalised on

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...

in 1938, he was sent to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

and lived in

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

with a foster family. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, he traced his family to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, with the help of the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...

. Hanfling left school at 14 to become an "office boy". For the next 25 years he worked in business, eventually running his own

employment agency An employment agency is an organization which matches employers to employees. In developed countries, there are multiple private businesses which act as employment agencies and a publicly-funded employment agency. Public employment agencies One ...

for

au pair An au pair (; plural: au pairs) is a helper from a foreign country working for, and living as part of, a host family. Typically, au pairs take on a share of the family's responsibility for childcare as well as some housework, and receive a mon ...

s. He told his students that he had picked up the English language through reading comics as a young boy.

Education

Bored by business, Hanfling studied 'A' levels and then enrolled on a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

in philosophy by correspondence at Birkbeck College. He gained a first, then embarked on a PhD, which he completed in 1971.

Academic work

Hanfling was appointed as a lecturer at the

in 1970, and worked there until retiring as a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in 1993. His biggest influence was

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 con ...

Trivia

It was impossible to tell, either from his conversation or from his writings, that Hanfling was not a native English speaker. He once commented to

Elizabeth Anscombe Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (; 18 March 1919 – 5 January 2001), usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe or Elizabeth Anscombe, was a British analytic philosopher. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ...

that he found it strange that Wittgenstein had continued to write in German throughout his life. Anscombe, who must have assumed that Hanfling was English, replied that only someone who wasn’t able to read Wittgenstein in German could have made that remark. He was greatly admired by his students. He taught a number of Williams College students, who went to Oxford University as part of the Williams-Exeter program. He was passionate about Wittgenstein's later works and a strong advocate of ordinary language philosophy. He was averse to jargon and insisted on the use of ordinary prose in writing and speech. He was so particular about grammar and the use of words that he would often ask his students to explain their use of a comma in a particular place.

Personal life

Hanfling spent the rest of his life in England with his wife Helga, a fellow German refugee and an acclaimed painter, and their two daughters. In 2007 a one-day conference on Wittgenstein was held, at the Walton Hall Campus on the OU, Milton Keynes, in honour of Hanfling.

Publications

Oswald Hanfling wrote many books, amongst the most popular and significant are: *''Logical Positivism'', Blackwell, 1981, (his first book) *''The Quest For Meaning'', Blackwell,1987, *''Life and Meaning: A Philosophical Reader'' (Editor), Blackwell, 1988, *''Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy'',

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

, 1989, *''Philosophical Aesthetics'' (Contributing Editor), Blackwell, 1992 *''Ayer'',

Weidenfeld & Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld a ...

, 1997, *''Philosophy and Ordinary Language: The Bent and Genius of Our Tongue'',

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

, 2003, *''Wittgenstein and the Human Form of Life'', Routledge, 2002,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanfling, Oswald 1927 births 2005 deaths Kindertransport refugees Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom German philosophers Jewish philosophers Philosophers of language Wittgensteinian philosophers Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London Alumni of University of London Worldwide Academics of the Open University German male writers British philosophers