John Berkman – författare

Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era, while his pupil and friend Elizabeth Anscombe is increasingly recognized as being an important philosopher in her own right. Over a number of years, Anscombe kept a series of notebooks labeled "Anecdotes about Wittgenstein," documents which are uniquely valuable for their ability to shed light on the intellectual and personal character of Wittgenstein, as well as Anscombe's own views on a wide range of topics--cultural, historical and psychological. While the original manuscript was divided into sections of varying lengths and jumped around among topics, Anscombe on Wittgenstein reorders them thematically so that readers might more vividly perceive the contours of her subjects. Between 1946-1947, Anscombe, Wittgenstein, and Wasfi Hijab routinely had philosophical conversations, which Anscombe wrote down immediately afterward while they were still fresh in her mind. Transcribed here as they were originally written--similar to a play, with the voices of the participants indicated by their initials--readers can experience these philosophers grappling with topics such as rule-following, necessity, and the notion of the indefinite, all subjects that were at the heart of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This book also offers a previously unpublished essay by Anscombe, as well as two essays by the book's editors, leading scholars on Anscombe, and biographies of the characters mentioned in the manuscripts. What emerges from these accounts is not only a picture of Wittgenstein, the man and philosopher, but also a memoir of a close friendship between two of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century.

Servais Pinckaers, O.P., is one of the preeminent Catholic moral theologians of his generation. His highly acclaimed works, among them The Sources of Christian Ethics, offer a thoroughly Thomistic and contemporary vision of the Christian moral life. They reflect the philosophical and spiritual prowess of a moral theologian who is estranged neither from philosophical ethics nor from dogmatic theology, neither from Scripture nor from spirituality. The first collection of its kind available in any language, this volume features the twenty most significant essays written by Pinckaers since his highly praised Sources. The essays offer profound reflections that are only possible by a contemporary moral theologian who knows the thought of Aquinas from lifelong study. Rather than taking a simply historical approach to Aquinas, Pinckaers seeks the basis of the intelligibility of the moral life, providing rich spiritual and theological insights along the way. He plumbs the depths of fundamental moral theology in these essays, where he treats Thomistic method and the renewal of moral theology, beatitude and Christian anthropology, moral agency, and passions and virtues, as well as law and grace. Such a detailed treatment of key issues in fundamental moral theology and Christian philosophical anthropology will certainly demand attention from every theologian and advanced student interested in Aquinas and in a virtue approach to Christian ethics. Pinckaers's work has been an important source for the revival of interest in virtue-oriented moral theology in recent years and will continue to be a major source for debates over the place of Scripture and the Holy Spirit in moral theology.