# Georg Henrik von Wright

Georg Henrik von Wright (Swedish:; 14 June 1916 – 16 June 2003) was a Finnish philosopher.

## Biography

G. H. von Wright was born in Helsinki on 14 June 1916 to Tor von Wright and his wife Ragni Elisabeth Alfthan.
On the retirement of Ludwig Wittgenstein as professor at the University of Cambridge in 1948, von Wright succeeded him. He published in English, Finnish, German, and Swedish, belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland. Von Wright was of both Finnish and 17th-century Scottish ancestry, and the family was raised to nobility in 1772.
In later years von Wright began to take an interest in political questions, having opposed the heavy bombing ordered by Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War. He attended the Praxis School-organised Korčula Summer School.

## Work

Von Wright's writings come under two broad categories. The first is analytic philosophy and philosophical logic in the Anglo-American vein. His 1951 texts An Essay in Modal Logic and "Deontic Logic" were landmarks in the postwar rise of formal modal logic and its deontic version. He was an authority on Wittgenstein, editing his later works. He was the leading figure in the Finnish philosophy of his time, specializing in philosophical logic, philosophical analysis, philosophy of action, philosophy of language, epistemology, and the close study of Charles Sanders Peirce.
The other vein in von Wright's writings is moralist and pessimist. During the last twenty years of his life, under the influence of Oswald Spengler, Jürgen Habermas and the Frankfurt School's reflections about modern rationality, he wrote prolifically. His best known article from this period is entitled "The Myth of Progress" (1993), and it questions whether our apparent material and technological progress can really be considered "progress" (see Myth of Progress).

## Awards

In the last year of his life, he was awarded several honorary degrees, including one by the University of Bergen. He also was awarded the Swedish Academy Finland Prize in 1968.

## Publications

* The Logical Problem of Induction, PhD thesis, 31 May 1941
* Den logiska empirismen (Logical Empiricism), in Swedish, 1945
* Über Wahrscheinlichkeit (On Chance), in German, 1945
* An Essay in Modal Logic, (Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics: Volume V), L.E.J. Brouwer, E.W. Beth, and A. Heyting (eds.), Amsterdam: North-Holland,1951
* A Treatise on Induction and Probability, 1951
* "Deontic Logic" Mind, 60: 1–15, 1951
* Tanke och förkunnelse (Thought and Preaching), in Swedish, 1955
* Logical Studies, 1957
* Logik, filosofi och språk (Logic, philosophy and language), in Swedish, 1957
* The Varieties of Goodness, 1963. (revised version of the second half of his 1959–60 Gifford Lectures, given at the University of St. Andrews)
* Norm and Action, 1963 (revised version of the first half of his Gifford lectures at St. Andrews).
* The Logic of Preference, 1963
* Essay om naturen, människan och den vetenskaplig-tekniska revolutionen (Essay on Nature, Man and the Scientific-Technological Revolution), in Swedish, 1963
* An Essay in Deontic Logic, 1968
* Time, Change and Contradiction, (The Twenty-Second Arthur Stanley Eddington Memorial Lecture Delivered at Cambridge University 1 November 1968) Cambridge University Press. 1969
* Tieteen filosofian kaksi perinnettä (The Two Traditions of the Philosophy of Science), in Finnish, 1970
* Explanation and Understanding, 1971
* Causality and Determinism, 1974
* Handlung, Norm und Intention (Action, Norm and Intention), in German, 1977
* Humanismen som livshållning (Humanism as an approach to Life), in Swedish, 1978
* Freedom and Determination, 1980
* Wittgenstein, 1982
* Philosophical Papers I–III, 1983–1984
** v. I Practical Reason, v. II Philosophical Logic, v. III Truth, Knowledge, and Modality
* Of Human Freedom, 1985. (1984 Tanner Lectures at the University of Helsinki)
* Filosofisia tutkielmia (Philosophical Dissertations), in Finnish, 1985
* Vetenskapen och förnuftet (Science and Reason), in Swedish, 1986
* Minervan Pöllö (The Owl of Minerva), in Finnish, 1991
* Myten om framsteget (The Myth of Progress), in Swedish, 1993
* The Tree of Knowledge and Other Essays, Leiden, Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004450554 , 1993
* Att förstå sin samtid (To Understand one's own Time), in Swedish, 1994
* Six Essays in Philosophical Logic. Acta Philosophica Fennica, Vol. 60, 1996
* Viimeisistä ajoista: Ajatusleikki (On the End Times: A Thought Experiment.), in Finnish, 1997
* Logiikka ja humanismi (Logic and Humanism), in Finnish, 1998
* In the Shadow of Descartes: Essays in the Philosophy of Mind, Dordrech, Kluwer, doi:10.1007/978-94-015-9034-11998 1998
* Mitt liv som jag minns det (My Life as I Remember it), in Swedish, 2001
Von Wright edited posthumous publications by Wittgenstein, which were published by Blackwell (unless otherwise stated):
* 1961. Notebooks 1914-1916.
* 1967. Zettel (Translated into English as Culture and Value).
* 1969. On Certainty.
* 1971. ProtoTractatus—An Early Version of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Cornell University Press.
* 1973. Letters to C. K. Ogden with Comments on the English Translation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
* 1974. Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore.
* 1978 (1956). Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics.
* 1980. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vols 1–2.
* 1980. Culture and Value (English translation of Zettel).
* 1982. Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vols. 1–2, 1992.
Von Wright also edited extracts from the diary of David Pinsent, also published by Wiley-Blackwell:
* 1990. A Portrait of Wittgenstein as a Young Man: From the Diary of David Hume Pinsent 1912–1914. ISBN 0-631-17511-3.
For more complete publication details see "Bibliography of the Writings of Georg Henrik von Wright" (in Schilpp, 1989) and "The Georg Henrik von Wright-Bibliography" (2005).