Alice Ambrose and early analytic philosophy

Abstract

Alice Ambrose is best known as Wittgenstein's student during the 1930s. Her association with probably the most famous philosopher of the 20 th 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.

“Bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy”: Labels that keep women out of the canon

“…Wittgenstein once wrote of Ambrose in a scathing tone that she was “indefatigable in trying to understand the extremely different problems we have been discussing” (qtd. in Connell 2022, 328). But the caution and care that these women exercised can be seen as an important intellectual virtue.…”

“…Next, in many cases, the lack of discussion of women philosophers' work in this period is due to the fact that they are deemed to be followers of more well-known male philosophers and thus are labelled as having produced only derivative philosophy. For example, Alice Ambrose and Margaret MacDonald's works are usually noted only as being "Wittgensteinian" (see Connell 2022;Vlastis 2022). Despite their own distinctive philosophical positions, some of 3 See also Paul 2011, 14, on the historical connection between scholarly virtues and "gentlemanly" identity.…”