Georg Henrik von Wright

Georg Henrik von Wright [ fɔnvrikt ] (* June 14, 1916 in Helsinki, † June 16, 2003 ) was a Finnish philosopher and logician, the influential contributions to the development of modern logic arrays in 20 yrs. developed.

Life

From Wright studied philosophy at the Helsinki and Cambridge universities. His academic teachers in Finland was Eino Kaila (1890-1958), considered the leading proponent of logical empiricism in Finland. Kaila had personally attended the meetings of the Vienna Circle and introduced the new metaphysics skeptical direction in the Finnish philosophy. From Wright's scientific socialization falls in the heyday of logical empiricism, the dogmatic inflexibility were successfully overcome in the course of internal developments of analytic philosophy with the beginning of the 50s - not least by Wright's own contributions. First, Wright began his academic teaching in Helsinki, where he taught as a professor of philosophy. He then took over the chair of his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge. He then taught at Cornell University.

Groundbreaking were his contributions " Deontic Logic" ( German Deontic logic) and An Essay in Modal Logic ( modal logic ) from the year 1951. The first article was produced by Wright for ( co-) founder of modern standard logic, which he composed the principles modal logic to develop sought, and provided with the second an influential contribution to the development of modal logic itself in later years, Wright was particularly concerned with questions of action theory and the so-called " tell - understanding controversy ". In addition, Wright was the co-editor of the posthumous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and was considered one of the most important Wittgenstein philologists.

In the last 20 years of his life, Wright dealt heavily with moral philosophical questions, and published, among other things 1993 the pessimistic post Myten om framsteget ( myth of progress, English: The Myth of Progress).

Honors

Works by Wright (selection)

  • Wittgenstein. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1986 ISBN 9783518578155 ( ISBN 9783518284872 stw 1990 )
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