Foreign thinker
Norman Malcolm
Norman MalcolmPhilosophy of Mind, EpistemologyAmerican
A good philosophical thought proceeds not with speed, but with patience, stopping and reflecting upon things that have a false obviousness.
Life and Thought
Norman Malcolm was a prominent American analytic philosopher and one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's closest students and friends. He played a pivotal role in introducing and promoting Wittgenstein's philosophy and the ordinary language school in America.
Norman Malcolm (1911–1990) was a renowned American analytic philosopher and professor at Cornell University. He completed his studies at the University of Kansas and Harvard, then went to Cambridge, where he conducted research under Ludwig Wittgenstein and G. E. Moore. His close friendship and intellectual connection with Wittgenstein completely transformed the course of his professional and intellectual life.
Malcolm is considered one of the main figures of Ordinary Language Philosophy in America. In the field of epistemology, he criticized skepticism and, inspired by G. E. Moore and Wittgenstein, defended the epistemic validity of "common sense" beliefs. Another important topic of his was presenting a reconstructed version of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God based on modal concepts.
Among his most important works is the book "Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir," which is one of the valuable intellectual biographies of Wittgenstein. Other works such as "Dreaming," "Epistemological Investigations," and "Wittgensteinian Themes" are also among his prominent writings in the fields of philosophy of mind, language, and the phenomenology of belief.
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