Norman Malcolm

Norman Malcolm (1911 – 1990) was an American philosopher. He was born in Selden, Kansas. After earning a Harvard doctorate, he joined the Princeton faculty in 1940.

Related Topics:
1911 - 1990 - American - Philosopher - Kansas - Harvard - Princeton

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During his first term at Cambridge in 1938, he met Ludwig Wittgenstein and attended Wittgenstein's lectures on the philosophical foundations of mathematics throughout 1939. Malcolm remained one of Wittgenstein's closest friends, and his 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.

Related Topics:
1938 - Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical - Mathematics - 1939 - 1958

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After serving in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1945, he spent most of his remaining American career at Cornell University (1947-1958), then emigrated to Britain.

Related Topics:
United States Navy - 1942 - 1945 - American - Cornell University - 1947 - 1958 - Britain

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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".

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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; Studies in the theory of knowledge; Consciousness and causality; Memory and mind; Thought and knowledge; Wittgensteinian themes (edited by Georg Henrik von Wright) and Dreaming.

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