Brian McGuinness


Brian McGuinness was a Wittgenstein scholar best known for his translation, with David Pears, of the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, and for his biography of the first half of Wittgenstein's life.
He was christened with the forenames "Bernard Francis" but changed his name to "Brian" in his youth. He commonly published, and was cited, as B. F. McGuinness.
He went up to Balliol College in 1945 where he was tutored by R. M. Hare. McGuinness was a Fellow and Tutor at Queen's College in Oxford University from 1953 to 1988, and took a post at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. In 1990, he became a professor at the University of Siena, Italy. From 1990 to 1993, he was director of the faculty of philosophy and social sciences of this university. During his time at Queen's, he was an invited speaker at the Oxford Socratic Club, speaking with J. D. Mabbott on "The Problem of Free Will" on 14 November 1955.

Family

His son, Paddy McGuinness, is a former British civil servant who was the Deputy National Security Adviser for Intelligence. His daughter, Catherine McGuinness, is a lawyer with a senior position in the City of London Corporation.

Select bibliography

Books authored

Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig, 1889-1921, Berkeley, California: University of California Press . Subsequently published with a new preface as Young Ludwig: Wittgenstein's Life, 1889-1921. New York: Clarendon Press.Wittgenstein: A Bibliographical Guide
  • Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers.

Select papers

  • , Philosophical Review, vol. 75, pp. 305–28.
  • , Revue Internationale de Philosophie, vol. 23, pp. 155–64.
  • , Revue Internationale de Philosophie, vol. 26, pp. 444–60.
  • , Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, vol. 38, no. 1, 1982, pp. 7–12.
  • , in Synthese, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 351-358.

Works edited/translated