I mentioned after returning from Cambridge the fact that at the Oxford half of the meeting (which I did not personally attend), they had an actors' re-enactment of the Lewis-Anscombe exchange, incorporating material from Lewis's original argument, Anscombe's criticisms, Lewis's revision(s), and Anscombe's final comments in the book of her papers. I also pointed out that Anscombe's husband, Peter Geach, was concerned about how his wife would be portrayed. Now in one respect I really do think the dramatization did realize what Geach feared. The presentation ended with a spotlight on Anscombe taking a cigar out of her mouth and saying "I won." I remember expressing some concerns about this to the people who wrote the re-enactment (who for the most part did an outstanding job) because I think philosophy is not mainly about winning and losing. I told my dissertation advisor Hugh Chandler, with whom I spent a long time talking about Lewis v. Anscombe while I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, and he shared my concerns about it.
I don't think that "I won" ending is fair to Anscombe, or to the discussion.
It is true that she thought that her criticisms of that first version had been just. Presumably Lewis himself took at least some of her objections to heart. His re-working of the first edition argument shows awareness of "the depth and difficulty of the questions being discussed" (Anscombe's generous words).
Both of them, presumably, showed 'honesty and seriousness' in the exchange and afterwards. It wasn't a game. Winning or losing wasn't the point.
The cigar incident was reported by Walter Hooper, and I think is one of the things that has led to a deep misunderstanding of the exchange between the two. It does not reflect Anscombe's mature, reflective understanding of what really happened. I suppose, however, that it did make good drama, but I for one wish it had been omitted.
5 comments:
Victor, how would you have written the ending? Remember that a drama usually requires an ending that is satisfying to the audience. This satisfactions is usually resolution of the conflict between the antagonist and protagonist.
I seem to remember that Anscombe herself somewhere vehemently denied that the cigar incident ever happened. (It's one of the (many) evidences Lindskroog gives somewhere for Hooper's tendency to embellish his stories; she gives the reference, I think.)
Mike: Just leave Anscombe's final remarks on the exchange as the last word, because, in point of fact, they were the last words written about the exchange by the participants.
Just a slight correction for Ahab: the "I won" response was given in reaction to a question put to her by Walter Hooper. I CAN imagine Anscombe responding to that kind of query by saying "Look, if you insist on putting it in terms of winning and losing, I suppose you'd have to say I won." But the incident as described by Hooper is very different from this.
Do you know where I can find a transcript of this debate?
Thanks in advance,
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