Norman Malcolm

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Western philosophy 20th Century
Name	Norman Malcolm
Birth	1911
Death	1990
School/tradition	Analytic Philosophy
Main interests	Philosophy of mind
Notable ideas	The memoir and legacy of Wittgenstein, criticism of common sense beliefs
Influenced by	Ludwig Wittgenstein, Søren Kierkegaard, René Descartes
Influenced	Oets Kolk (O.K.) Bouwsma

Norman Malcolm (1911 – 1990) was an American philosopher, born in Selden, Kansas. He studied philosophy with O.K. Bouwsma at the University of Nebraska, then enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard University in 1933.

At Cambridge University in 1938/1939, he met G. E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Malcolm attended Wittgenstein's lectures on the philosophical foundations of 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 from 1942 to 1945, Malcolm, with his wife, 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, where he taught until his retirement. In 1949, Wittgenstein was a guest of the Malcolms in Ithaca, New York. In that year Malcolm introduced O.K. Bouwsma to Wittgenstein. Bouwsma was close with Wittgenstein until Wittgenstein died in 1951.

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.[1]

Other than that he is known for propagating the view that common sense philosophy and ordinary language philosophy are the same. He was a staunch opponent of Moore's concept of knowledge and certitude. His critique of Moore's articles on skepticism (and also on Moore's 'Here is a hand' argument) lay the foundation for the renewed interest in common sense philosophy and ordinary language philosophy. Malcolm wasn't a defender of skepticism but found Moore's rebuttal of it to be sorely lacking in clarity and ineffective as a whole.

Malcolm's seminars at Cornell were legendary. Seated at the head of the table, he would contemplate a small or crucial issue raised by a student or colleague, holding his head and bobbing slightly for several silent minutes. (Wittgenstein was said to have acted similarly.) Malcolm would finally raise his head then make a comment that was usually clear, simple, correct, and often trenchant.

His works include:

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir
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)
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) ISBN-10: 0860760243
Thought and knowledge
Wittgensteinian themes (edited by Georg Henrik von Wright) and Dreaming.

[edit] See also

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[edit] References

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