Adrian Moore论伯纳德·威廉斯和安斯康姆
昨天讲座后有个牛津的朋友分享了一篇Adrian Moore的访谈（http://www.whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/#/adrian-moore/）。非常长，摘两段关于威廉斯和安斯康姆的轶事。（连BW都怕安斯康姆啊
What were classes with Bernard Williams like?
As an undergraduate I had no opportunity to be supervised by Bernard: he only supervised graduate students. But I did attend his lectures, as I have already mentioned. And I found them riveting. He lectured without notes, and he was just the virtuoso that you might expect. Each lecture was a dazzling display—erudite, witty, very funny, and totally absorbing. The other main contact that I had with him was through weekly ‘at homes’ that he held: he was in his college rooms at a certain time each week, and anyone could turn up. Once the group had assembled, there would be a two-hour impromptu discussion of some philosophical question that someone proposed on the spot. These events were mostly attended by graduate students, although there were always a few keen undergraduates in attendance (such as me!), and occasionally other members of the Faculty too. The group typically comprised about twenty-five people, and the discussions were always superb. Bernard himself steered them, of course, and he always had plenty of brilliant and insightful points to make. But they were discussions, not lectures: there was plenty of scope for other people to contribute as well.
I remember one hilarious incident. I think it was in my second year. The grandmother of an undergraduate friend of mine was visiting Cambridge with her ‘boyfriend’, and my friend asked me if I would take this elderly couple along to one of Bernard’s ‘at homes’. I wasn’t sure that they were entitled to attend, but I meekly agreed, and I sat with them at the back of the room, embarrassed by the fact that everyone could see that they were with me. My embarrassment was compounded when Bernard began by doing what he always began by doing, namely asking, ‘What shall we discuss this week?’, and—quick as a flash—the boyfriend asked, slightly aggressively, ‘What is philosophy?’ In fact there ensued one of our best ever discussions, a very wide-ranging exploration of the nature of philosophy, its aims, its methods, its relation to its own history, and so on. And, to my relief, neither my friend’s grandmother nor her boyfriend said a further word. When we emerged, I turned to them and asked, ‘What did you think of that?’ The boyfriend said he was disappointed. I asked, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘I asked what philosophy is, and no-one seemed to know.’ I tried to explain that the point wasn’t really to arrive at a definitive answer, but to explore the issues and to reflect on what was relevant to the question. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I see. That explains it. I couldn’t believe that this guy was a world-famous professional philosopher and still didn’t know what it was that he was paid to do.’
Yes! Anscombe has always struck me as intimidating? What was she like?
Intimidating! I think even Bernard found her intimidating. This had something to do with the fact that she oozed utter self-confidence both in the correctness of her own views and in their importance. I had very little to do with her as an undergraduate, although I did attend some of her (badly delivered, badly organized, but still strangely engrossing) lectures. The one time that I felt the real force of her capacity to intimidate was when I was later back at Cambridge, in a post-doctoral position, and I encountered her at a cocktail party. This gives me an excuse to regale you with another anecdote.
I was chatting to a group of graduate students. Anscombe came up to us, and asked me what I was working on. My heart sank. I remember thinking ‘I don’t want to go there.’ But I found myself mumbling, ‘Some of Wittgenstein’s ideas.’ I hoped that she would then turn her attention to someone else. But one of the graduate students in the group mischievously interjected at that point and said, ‘Aren’t you arguing that Wittgenstein was a kind of transcendental idealist, Adrian?’ In fact I wasn’t—not exactly—but I still didn’t want to go there, so I mumbled some sort of assent. ‘How interesting,’ Anscombe said, and then added—after a pregnant pause and before turning to someone else—‘I once knew someone called Wittgenstein.’
