[KENNY, Anthony – his copies], WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Basil Blackwell, Oxford), 1953 [first edition] [with:] WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (Routledge, London), 1955 [later printing] [with:] WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books (Basil Blackwell, Oxford), 1958 [first edition]

8vo; various paginations

An outstanding group of books from the working library of the Wittgenstein scholar Sir Anthony Kenny. In Kenny’s marginal annotations we can see him attempt the task for which he is best known: establishing continuities between Wittgenstein’s early, middle and late philosophy.

The most significent of the three is the Philosophical Grammar, inscribed by Kenny ‘1955 / Rome’ – two years after its publication, and the year of Kenny’s ordination in Rome. In addition to being Wittgenstein’s magnum opus, this is also the test case for understanding the development of Wittgenstein’s thinking, and was clearly central to Kenny’s working practice. The volume contains hundreds of annotations, ranging from engagements with the substance of the text, to corrections of the translation and cross-references. These cross-references offer a unique concordance – or even ‘skeleton key’ – with which Wittgenstein’s entire oeuvre can be brought together into a harmonious sustem.

As Kenny himself notes in his hugely influential Wittgenstein (1973), ‘the Investigations contrasts astonishingly with the Tractatus in style and content’ (p. 13). Yet as he showed in that book, many of the arguments that seem particular to the Philosophical Investigations have their analogue, their origin or even their mirror in the earlier Tractatus. In this collection it is possible to see not only Kenny’s cross-references between these two books, but also his recourse to the ‘intermediate’ Blue and Brown Books, which contain notes on lectures given at Cambridge in the 1930s.

To give just one example of many, Kenny makes extensive notes on the section of Philosophical Investigations in which Wittgenstein argues that the ‘life’ of the sign consists in its use (§§430–432). In his marginalia Kenny traces the entire history of this concept through Wittgenstein’s writing, giving references to Zettel, to the Philosophical Grammar, to the Blue and Brown Books and ultimately all the way back to the Tractatus. Here we can go to the relevant sections in the latter and find that these are indeed annotated, probably in preparation of Kenny’s essay ‘The Ghost of the Tractatus’, which deals at length with this section.

The other major concern of Kenny’s was his translation of the Philosophical Grammar (published by Blackwell in 1974), and this is evident throughout the Philosophical Investigations in particular, with a great many cross references, sometimes identifying passages that are more or less identical in the two works.

Given the complications in interpreting (dis)continuities in Wittgenstein’s notes and published work, this is an exceptionally rich resource: the cross-references are themselves an original act of scholarship.

Kenny (b.1931) is an important philosopher in his own right, with specalisms in ancient and mediaeval philosophy, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of religion. Following his ordination Kenny obtained a doctorate from Oxford, and stayed at that University until his retirement in 2001. Since the 1960s he has held an agnostic position and was in fact excommunicated by the catholic church following his marriage in 1965. Aside from his Wittgensteinian scholarship, his most important contributions have been to Thomism and the philosophy of religion. Kenny’s celebrated career – which has involved the presidency of the British Academy and the Royal Instititue of Philosophy – culminated in a knighthood in 1992, conferred by Queen Elizabeth II.

As editor, interpreter and literary executor, Kenny takes a place alongside G.H. von Wright, G.E.M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees in the inner circle of those concerned with Wittgenstein’s legacy.

Good condition: Philosophical Invesigations rebound in blue cloth with gilt spine titles; Tractutus with slightly weak hinges; Blue and Brown Books very good with slight fade to the spine; all annotated throughout.