Rush Rhees

For University of Rochester president, see Benjamin Rush Rhees.

Rush Rhees
Rush Rhees, photographed by Michael Nedo
Born	(1905-03-19)19 March 1905 Rochester, New York, United States
Died	22 May 1989(1989-05-22) (aged 84) Swansea, Wales
Nationality	American
Spouses	Jean Henderson Margaret 'Peg' Britton
Era	20th-century
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy

Rush Rhees (/riːz/; 19 March 1905 – 22 May 1989) was an American philosopher. He is principally known as a student, friend, and literary executor of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. With G. E. M. Anscombe he was co-editor of Wittgenstein's posthumous Philosophical Investigations (1953), and, with Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, he co-edited Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956). He was solely responsible for the editing of Philosophical Grammar (1974) and Philosophical Remarks (1975). Rhees taught philosophy at Swansea University from 1940 until 1966, when he took early retirement to devote more time to editing Wittgenstein's works.

Early life and studies

Rush Rhees makes the front page of The New York Times in 1924.

Rush Rhees was born on 19 March 1905 in Rochester, New York.[1] He was the son of Harriet Chapin née Seelye (the daughter of Laurenus Clark Seelye) and her husband (Benjamin) Rush Rhees, a Baptist minister, author and president of the University of Rochester and, via the latter, the great-great-grandson of the radical Welsh-born preacher and pamphleteer Morgan John Rhys.[2][3][4] Rhys, who fled to America from Wales in 1794 to avoid prosecution, was befriended and helped by Benjamin Rush.[1] Rhys's appreciation was such that he named his second son Benjamin Rush Rhees (the surname having changed after emigration).[1]

Rhees began studying philosophy at Rochester, aged 16, in 1922. As a sophomore, he was expelled from his ethics class by Professor George M. Forbes, who had "found his questionings rude and insolent."[3] This controversy, which occurred in February 1924 while Rhees' father was out of the country, was reported on the front page of The New York Times.[5] Rhees would withdraw from the university and leave for Scotland soon after.[6][3]

Rhees matriculated at the University of Edinburgh later in 1924 where he was particularly influenced by John Anderson. Rhees was influenced by Anderson's left-wing social philosophy among other things, a sympathy he maintained for the rest of his life.[3][7] He graduated with a first-class honours degree in philosophy there in 1928.[8]

That same year he was appointed assistant lecturer, under J. L. Stocks, at the University of Manchester.[1] This was a position he held for four years.[3]

He then studied with Brentano scholar Alfred Kastil at the University of Innsbruck for a year.[8]

In 1933 he became a research fellow at the University of Cambridge.[8] While at Cambridge, he studied as a Ph.D. candidate under G. E. Moore. Rhees impressed Moore, who once described him as his ablest student, although Rhees proved unable to submit a dissertation.[3][1][9]

Ray Monk reports that Rhees "had, at first, been put off attending Wittgenstein’s lectures by the mannerisms of Wittgenstein’s students."[10] Rhees had however overcome these misgivings by February 1936 from which point he attended all the remaining lectures of that year.[10] And, as Monk notes, he soon became one of Wittgenstein’s closest friends, remaining so until Wittgenstein’s death.[10]

Though, as Mario Von Der Ruhr notes, it "marked the beginning, not just of a deep friendship, but of an intense philosophical conversation," Rhees' time as a formal student of Wittgenstein was rather short.[11] Rhees returned to Manchester as a temporary Assistant Lecturer in 1937 then left academia to work as a welder in a factory until 1940.[11]

In the 1940s Rhees considered joining the Trotskyist Revolutionary Communist Party. Previously he had been sympathetic to anarchism,[12] publishing articles in the anarchist newspaper Freedom.[13] Rhees was a Catholic who attended Latin mass, including after the Vatican II and proceeding reforms.[7]

Career

Rhees taught philosophy at Swansea University from 1940 to 1966. He has been known mainly as a Wittgenstein exegete and for his influence on his friends, colleagues Peter Winch, R. F. Holland, and former student and his literary executor D. Z. Phillips. He was responsible for editing but also developing the legacy left by Wittgenstein, at times emphasising religious and ethical understandings of Wittgenstein's work, reflecting how Wittgenstein himself sometimes said he wanted to be understood. Together with G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe he was appointed by Wittgenstein as his literary executor. He was also Wittgenstein's personal executor.

Rhees was also influential in bringing the work of other philosophers to greater attention, notably for example the French philosopher, Simone Weil. For a time, he was visiting professor at King's College London, and with Winch and Norman Malcolm formed a 'formidable triumvirate'[14] of Wittgensteinans.

Rhees returned to Swansea in 1982 after the death of his first wife Jean Henderson. In 1985 he would re-marry to artist and designer (Margaret) Peg Smythies, the widow of Wittgenstein disciple Yorick Smythies and the ex-wife of Barry Pink, a friend of Yorick's who had also been a friend to Wittgenstein during the last year of his life.[15][16]

At Swansea Rhees continued to teach, leading weekly post-graduate seminars from 1983 and, in the Cambridge tradition, welcoming a few students in 'at home' sessions for more detailed discussions of their research work. He also attended weekly meetings of the University's Philosophical Society that he had founded around 1940 (and which had counted Wittgenstein as chief amongst the eminent philosophers who addressed it in the years when Rhees was still a lecturer). It was also a forum in which students were expected to test and sharpen their philosophical wits. It was clear in these seminars that Rhees was not only devoted to exegesis of one of the finest thinkers of the twentieth century, but was, in fact, constantly absorbed in developing his own profound insights in philosophy. He was self-effacing of his capacities and had to be persuaded to accept an honorary professorship at Swansea where he had previously turned down promotion during his teaching career.

Gravestone

Archives at Swansea

In 1966 he took early retirement from the university to devote more time to editing Wittgenstein's works.[17]

Rhees died on 22 May 1989, and is buried at Oystermouth Cemetery in Mumbles near Swansea.

A volume of essays in Rhees' honour was published that same year.[18][19] This collection was edited by D.Z. Phillips and Peter Winch, containing essays by Cora Diamond, Norman Malcolm, David Cockburn, H. O. Mounce, Raimond Gaita and others.[7] Numerous posthumous collections of Rhees' published works, notes and manuscripts appeared under the editorship of D. Z. Phillips in the years that followed.[20]

Rhees' papers are held by Swansea University Archives.[8]

Works

Books

• Without Answers (1969)[21]
• Discussions of Wittgenstein (1970)[22][23]

Nachlass works prepared for publication by D. Z. Phillips:

• Rush Rhees On Religion and Philosophy (1997)[20][24]
• Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Discourse (1998,[25] 2nd edition 2006)[26]
• Moral Questions (1999)[27][28]
• Discussions of Simone Weil (1999)[29]
• Wittgenstein's On Certainty: There - Like Our Life (2003)[30]
• In Dialogue with the Greeks (2004) [31][32]
  • Volume I: The Presocratics and Reality
  • Volume II: Plato and Dialectic

Select papers and book chapters

• “Wittgenstein’s Builders.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 60, 1959, pp. 171–86.
• "Can There Be a Private Language?", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 28 (1954) reprinted in Philosophy and ordinary language (1963)
• "Ontology" and Identity in the Tractatus', in Studies in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, ed. Peter Winch, (1969)

• "Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual", in Wittgenstein and His Times, ed. Brian McGuiness, (1982)

Edited works

(incomplete)

(Co-)edited works by Wittgenstein:

• with G.E.M. Anscombe, Philosophical Investigations, (1953), G.E.M. Anscombe (trans.)
• with G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, (1956), G. E. M. Anscombe (trans.), Oxford, revised edition 1978.
• The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations, (1958) with an introduction by Rhees.
• Philosophical Remarks, (1974), R. Hargreaves and R. White (trans.).[33]
• Philosophical Grammar, (1975), A. Kenny (trans.),

Other edited works:

• Studies in Logic and Probability (1952), a selection of works by George Boole with an introduction by Rhees
• Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections (1981) by Norman Malcolm with a postscript by Rhees[34]

*For a more complete list of major works published during his lifetime see "Rush Rhees: Main Publications" in Wittgenstein: Attention to Particulars (1989)

Further reading

• Wallgren, Thomas H., ed. (2024). The Creation of Wittgenstein: Understanding the Roles of Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright. Bloomsbury Publishing.[35]
  • Hertzberg, Lars, "Rush Rhees: “Discussion is my Only Medicine”" (Open Access eprint of 2nd chapter)

References

1. Phillips, D. Z. (2006), "Rhees, Rush", in Grayling, A.C; Goulder, Naomi; Pyle, Andrew (eds.), The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy, Continuum, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001, hdl:11693/51028, ISBN 9780199754694, retrieved 2019-05-22
2. Phillips, D.Z. (1989-06-18). "Introduction: Attention to Particulars". Wittgenstein: Attention to Particulars Essays in honour of Rush Rhees (1905–89). (ed.) Phillips, D. Z., Winch, Peter. London. pp. 10–11. ISBN 9781349111978. OCLC 1086447594. Rush Rhees had a distinguished ancestry. His great-great-grand-father, Morgan John Rhys, Baptist preacher and radical pamphleteer, fled from Wales to America in 1794 during the unrest which followed the French Revolution. Benjamin Rush, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, helped him to form a Welsh colony in the Alleghenies. Morgan John Rhees (the spelling of the surname had changed) named his second son Benjamin Rush Rhees. Rhees' father was also named Benjamin Rush Rhees, but dropped the 'Benjamin'. He was an outstanding president of Rochester University, to whom the Rush Rhees Library stands as a tribute. Rhees' father's achievements and family background are recorded in 'Rhees of Rochester' by John Rothwell Slater.
3. Phillips, D. Z. (2004). "Rhees, Rush (1905–1989)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 26 October 2021.
4. Kimball, Bruce A. (1999). "Rhees, Rush (1860-1939), Baptist minister and university president". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0900627. ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
5. "Radicalism of Rochester President's Son Causes Professor to Bar Youth From Class". The New York Times. 1924-02-28. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-05-22. The 'advanced ideas' of Rush Rhees Jr., son of the President of the University of Rochester., have caused him to be barred from the second semester of his ethics class at the university. His ideas are said to have conflicted with those of Dr. G. M. Forbes, head of the philosophy department. ... 'The most unsatisfactory notebook for the year's work I have ever had turned in to me,' Dr. Forbes told his class of seventy-five students referring to young Rhees's work. 'It attempted refutation of everything I had taught during the year.' Young Rhees said ...'I am a radical. Dr. Forbes is not. That is why I am barred from the course,' the student said. … 'Seemingly he does not want any one to formulate ideas which do not accord with his own.'
6. "When Rush Rhees' son dropped out". Campus Times. 2016-03-24. Retrieved 2019-05-22. The elder Rhees' biographer is wholly silent on the President's reaction to the nationally publicized controversy stirred up by his son back in Rochester.... Rhees, Jr. withdrew from the University shortly after this incident, and he left for Scotland prior to his father's return home. Rhees, Jr. completed his undergraduate education at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland....
7. Kerr, Fergus (1999). "Reviews". New Blackfriars. 80 (935): 46–51.
8. "Rush Rhees Collection - Archives Hub". archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
9. see the biographical sketch by D. Z. Phillips in Rhees' On Religion and Philosophy, 1997
10. Monk, Ray (1990). Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. New York : Free Press : Maxwell Macmillan International. p. 357. ISBN 978-0-02-921670-5 – via Internet Archive.
11. Von Der Ruhr, Mario (2009-12-31), Edelman, John (ed.), "Chapter 9. Rhees, Wittgenstein, and the Swansea School", Sense and Reality, De Gruyter, pp. 219–235, doi:10.1515/9783110328813.219, ISBN 978-3-11-032881-3, retrieved 2022-05-23
12. Wittgenstein and the possibility of discourse. Cambridge University Press. 1998. p. 292.
13. Rush Rhees on religion and philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 1997. pp. xiv–xv.
14. Colin Lyas, "Peter Winch", Acumen Press, 1999, p. 4
15. "About". Peg Smythies. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
16. Hayes, John (2018). "Wittgenstein's Irish Cottage". History Ireland. 26 (4): 36–38. ISSN 0791-8224. JSTOR 26565897.
17. Rhees, Rush. (2004). "Acknowledgments". In Dialogue with the Greeks: Volume I: The Presocratics and Reality. Phillips, D. Z. (Dewi Zephaniah). Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate. ISBN 0754639886. OCLC 53469916.
18. Reinhardt., Lloyd (October 1992). "Wittgenstein: Attention to Particulars. Essays in Honour of Rush Rhees (1905-1989)". Philosophical Books. 31 (4): 213–216. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0149.1992.tb00644.x.
19. Phillips, D. Z.; Winch, Peter, eds. (1989). Wittgenstein: Attention to Particulars. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-11197-8. ISBN 978-1-349-11199-2.
20. Hertzberg, Lars (2001-10-01). "Rush Rhees on Philosophy and Religious Discourse". Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers. 18 (4): 431–442. doi:10.5840/faithphil200118440. ISSN 0739-7046.
21. Geach, P. T. (1971). "Review of Without Answers". The Journal of Philosophy. 68 (17): 530–532. doi:10.2307/2024693. ISSN 0022-362X. JSTOR 2024693.
22. W., J. V. (1971). "Review of Discussions of Wittgenstein". The Review of Metaphysics. 25 (2): 366–367. ISSN 0034-6632. JSTOR 20126029.
23. Dilman, Ilham (October 1970). "Discussions of Wittgenstein". Philosophical Books. 11 (3): 23–28. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0149.1970.tb00068.x.
24. Kerr, Fergus (1999). "Review of RUSH RHEES ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY; WITTGENSTEIN AND THE POSSIBILITY OF DISCOURSE, D.Z. Phillips". New Blackfriars. 80 (935): 46–51. ISSN 0028-4289 – via JSTOR.
25. Cockburn, David (January 2002). "Rush Rhees, Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Discourse". Philosophical Investigations. 25 (1): 79–93. doi:10.1111/1467-9205.00161. ISSN 0190-0536.
26. "Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Discourse, 2nd Edition | Wiley". Wiley.com. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
27. Joyce, Richard “Review of Rush Rhees’ Moral Questions.” Philosophical Books 41 (2000). Penultimate draft.
28. Gaita, Raymond (January 2002). "Rush Rhees, Moral Questions". Philosophical Investigations. 25 (1): 94–110. doi:10.1111/1467-9205.00162. ISSN 0190-0536.
29. Bell, Richard H. (2001). "Review of Simone Weil and the Intellect of Grace; Discussions of Simone Weil". The Journal of Religion. 81 (4): 665–667. doi:10.1086/490966. ISSN 0022-4189. JSTOR 1206084.
30. Dwyer, Phil (2005). "Wittgenstein's On Certainty: There—Like Our Life Rush Rhees Edited by D. Z. Phillips Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003, x + 195 pp., $64.95". Dialogue. 44 (4): 814–816. doi:10.1017/S0012217300000214. ISSN 0012-2173. S2CID 170341725.
31. Sayre, Patricia (3 August 2005). "In Dialogue with the Greeks, Volume I: The Presocratics and Reality; Volume II: Plato and Dialectic". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
32. Northwood, Heidi (October 2006). "In Dialogue with the Greeks (Vol. I: The Presocratics and Reality; Vol. II: Plato and Dialectic) – Rush Rhees, Edited by D. Z. Phillips". Philosophical Investigations. 29 (4): 369–382. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9205.2006.00301.x. ISSN 0190-0536.
33. White, Alan R. (1977). "Review of Philosophical Remarks". Metaphilosophy. 8 (1): 72–74. ISSN 0026-1068. JSTOR 24435627.
34. Malcolm, Norman (1981-11-19). "Wittgenstein's Confessions". London Review of Books. pp. 16–18. ISSN 0260-9592. Archived from the original on 2017-07-05. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
35. Loner, David (2024-07-29). "Thomas Wallgren (ed.): The Creation of Wittgenstein: Understanding the Roles of Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Georg Henrik von Wright. 2023". Wittgenstein-Studien. 15 (1): 235–239. doi:10.1515/witt-2024-0993. ISSN 1868-7431.