ABSTRACT

Alice Ambrose (1906–2001) is best known as Wittgenstein’s student during the 1930s. Her association with probably the most famous philosopher of the twentieth century contributes to her obscurity. Ambrose is referred to in historiography of this period as ‘follower’ or ‘disciple’ but never considered in her own right as a philosopher. The neglect of her place in the history of philosophy needs to be resisted. This paper explores some of Ambrose’s most interesting ideas from the early 1950s, when she developed and expanded some of Wittgenstein’s inchoate suggestions and contributed to on-going debates about how to do philosophy and the role of language in the discipline. By combining an analysis of the 1950 paper “The Problem of Linguistic Inadequacy” and the 1952 paper “Linguistic Approaches to Philosophical Problems”, it will be seen that Ambrose rejects the idea that ordinary language can be improved and begins to develop the view that philosophical language adapts to usage. Thus, Ambrose does not blindly follow Wittgenstein but breaks with his idea that there is something inherently wrong with the way philosophers communicate. The paper also seeks to show how marginalized philosophers become obscured in the history of the subject through the example of Ambrose.

摘要

Alice Ambrose (1906–2001) 在 1930 年代以维特根斯坦的学生而闻名。她与可能是二十世纪最著名的哲学家的交往导致了她的默默无闻。安布罗斯在这一时期的史学中被称为“追随者”或“门徒”，但从未将她自己视为哲学家。需要抵制忽视她在哲学史上的地位。本文探讨了安布罗斯在 1950 年代初期的一些最有趣的想法，当时她发展和扩展了维特根斯坦的一些早期建议，并为正在进行的关于如何进行哲学和语言在该学科中的作用的辩论做出了贡献。通过结合对 1950 年论文“语言不足问题”和 1952 年论文“哲学问题的语言方法”的分析，可以看出，安布罗斯拒绝了普通语言可以改进的想法，并开始发展哲学语言适应用法的观点。因此，安布罗斯并没有盲目地追随维特根斯坦，而是打破了他的观点，即哲学家的交流方式存在固有的错误。这篇论文还试图通过安布罗斯的例子来展示被边缘化的哲学家是如何在这个主题的历史中变得模糊的。