Philosopher and colleague of Ludwig Wittgenstein dies: GH von
Wright (d. 16 June 2003)
The Finnish philosopher GH von Wright will be greatly missed as
one of the leading European philosophers of the century. His patrons,
following a year in Cambridge, had been CD Broad, GE Moore, and
of course Wittgenstein himself. In 1947, he returned, after a gap
of eight years, to Cambridge as a visiting lecturer. Wittgenstein,
in due course, nominated Von Wright as his successor as Professor
of Philosophy at Cambridge University. He was incumbent in Cambridge
when Wittgenstein died there. And so in 1951 von Wright returned
to Helsinki. Von Wright’s third intellectual base was Cornell University,
after Helsinki and Cambridge. Over decades, he built up a superlative
position in Modal philosophy and inductive logic teaching drew him
back to moral philosophy for a time. As Professor-at-Large, at Cornell
University, he expounded a deep wisdom.
