Esercizi Filosofici 19 (2024)

In this paper we apply Anscombe’s account of human linguistic practices and of intentional action in a novel way—to the acts, by members of the Ngāi Tahu tribe in colonial-era Aotearoa New Zealand, of writing Letters to the Editor of local and regional newspapers. We identify the salient contexts of those acts and then draw on Anscombe’s work to identify intentional and moral actions that otherwise risk going unnoticed. Our analysis exemplifies Anscombe’s and Wittgenstein’s view that we can read off intentional action from behaviour in context and also yields a rich historical and conceptual account of the letter-writers. We argue that this approach has theoretical advantages for Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies.

The normative approach to Milgram’s experiment argues that participants do not obey because of submission to authority, but because they are following explicit and previously justified rules. However, this approach remains theoretically ambiguous and empirically imprecise, due to a confused use of the concept of normative necessity. In this article, I draw on Anscombe’s account of practice to clarify this concept and to develop a more precise interpretation of the subjects’ behavior within Milgram’s experimental framework.

This paper examines Anscombe’s theory of promises, especially the new obligation generated from promises. Firstly, I introduce a possible challenge that there are two seemingly contradictory kinds of necessity in her discussion of promises (Section 1). Then, I analyze these two kinds of necessity: the conventional necessity which indicates that the obligation is based on conventions and not naturally intelligible (Section 2); the Aristotelian necessity without which some good cannot be attained (Section 3). At last, I present Anscombe’s notion of “human linguistic practice” and related practical necessity as her answer to this seeming contradiction (Section 4). My aim is to demonstrate how the notion of “human linguistic practice” can be employed to defend the consistency of Anscombe’s theory of promises.

Anscombe’s article «The Dignity of the Human Being» raises a question typical of science fiction: what would happen if the stage of gestation in the womb were to disappear? According to her, the fact that procreation is no longer organically anchored would mean that the question « to whom does this human belong?» could then be asked in a meaningful way. This article intends to show that the treatment of the hypothesis is exemplary of Anscombe’s reinterpretation of the Wittgensteinian principle that «essence is expressed in grammar». By shifting the question of dignity onto the terrain of grammar, Anscombe outlines what might be called a «practical turn» for dignity. Dignity is understood not by exhibiting theoretical presuppositions, but by knowing that there is an impossible question about the human, a question we should never be able to ask of each other.

This paper proposes a method to infer intention from observation and specific theoretical assumptions. This approach is grounded in counterfactual reasoning, similar to that underlying contemporary causal research. Causation is not directly observable, but empirical evidence—experimental or sometimes purely observational data—can support causal hypotheses. We propose extending this framework to formally represent interventions upon causal systems by identifying their intended effects. To achieve this, we introduce the concepts of final model and want-operator.