Spinney, Oliver;
(2025)
Limits, Limitations, and Necessity in Margaret Macdonald.
European Journal of Philosophy
10.1111/ejop.13079.
(In press).
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Abstract
I offer a contribution to recent work on Margaret Macdonald (1903–1956), a prolific though largely unknown figure in the history of analytic philosophy who applied Wittgensteinian insights to a broad range of issues. Here I examine the development of Macdonald's views with respect to idealism and conventionalism, through the application of a conceptual distinction between limits and limitations found in discussions of the same issue as it appears in the work of Wittgenstein. I show that Macdonald rejected both Platonism, idealism, and conventionalism in her doctoral thesis, and that she subsequently viewed these positions as specimens of nonsense issued under the misapprehension that necessary truths admit of justification.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Limits, Limitations, and Necessity in Margaret Macdonald |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/ejop.13079 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.13079 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2025 The Author(s). European Journal of Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | conventionalism, history of analytic philosophy, idealism, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Margaret Macdonald |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208333 |
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