A GEM IN HISTORY
GEM Gertrude Elizabeth Margret born in 1919 in Limerick, Ireland attended Oxford graduated with first-class honors in Classics and Philosophy in 1941, and then made a decision that would define her career: she packed up and moved to Cambridge specifically to attend the lectures of Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Wittgenstein didn't let just anyone into his lectures. He made an exception for Anscombe. By the time he died in 1951, he trusted her so completely that he named her one of only three literary executors of his entire estate. Her 1953 English translation of his Philosophical Investigations remains the standard version used in classrooms and universities to this day.
That book (Intention) built an entirely new philosophical framework for understanding what it means to do something on purpose. Before Anscombe, philosophy had no precise way to distinguish between intending an action and merely foreseeing that it would happen. She changed that. Her work became the foundation of modern action theory, influencing everything from criminal law to medical ethics to debates about AI and autonomous weapons.
She eventually took the Chair of Philosophy at Cambridge the same chair previously held by Wittgenstein himself. She held it from 1970 until her retirement in 1986.
