Open Access to Wittgenstein Nachlass

Trinity College Cambridge recently announced that it is planning to make a new Nachlass facsimile of Wittgenstein’s original documents, available to all freely online.   This will be done in co-operation with the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen.

“The University of Bergen has continued to support the Bergen Electronic Edition, but we have always known that a new edition that takes full advantage of new technology would have to be created. That the new facsimile will be free for all who wish to access it is an amazing gift to Wittgenstein scholarship.”

– Prof Alois Pichler, head of the Wittgenstein Archive

Read the full press release

The Limits of My World

Language has been the focus of philosophical enquiry for the last century. But was the ‘linguistic turn’ a wrong turn, leading to a barren discipline without ‘real world’ influence? Is it time for a fresh approach to the big issues, or would this be a capitulation to intellectual fantasy?

The Panel

One of the world’s most influential analytic philosophers, John Searle, live from Berkeley, joins post-postmodernist Hilary Lawson and Cambridge logician Michael Potter to wage the ultimate war of words:

 

The Debate on Martin Rees’ Templeton Prize

Last week, the theoretical astrophysicist Professor Martin Rees, former president of the Royal Society and current Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, accepted the Templeton Prize. Funded by a massive endowment from the Tennessee-born billionaire Sir John Marks Templeton (1912-2008), the prize is awarded, according to its website, to ‘a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.’

That Rees’ acceptance of the prize has caused controversy should surprise few, given the number of highly opinionated and vocal participants in the current science-religion debate. Indeed one thing Rees was undoubtedly being rewarded for was his unusually conciliatory contribution to this often hostile conversation. But those who feel their hostility to be justified, particularly on the scientific side, regret what they perceive as the conversion of Rees into