Maurice O’Connor Drury was among Wittgenstein’s first students after his return to Cambridge in 1929. The subsequent course of Drury’s life and thought was to be enormously influenced by his teacher, from his decision to become a doctor to his later work in psychiatry.
The Selected Writings of Maurice O’Connor Drury brings together the best of his lectures, conversations, and letters on philosophy, religion and medicine. Central to the collection is the Danger of Words, the 1973 text described by Ray Monk as 'the most truly Wittgensteinian book published by any of Wittgenstein's students'. Through notes on conversations with Wittgenstein, letters to a student of philosophy and correspondence of almost 30 years with Rush Rhees, Drury gives shape to what he had learned from Wittgenstein. Whether discussing methods of philosophy, Simone Weil or the power of hypnosis, he makes fascinating excursions into the bearing of Wittgenstein’s thought on philosophy and the practice of medicine and psychiatry.
With an introduction presenting a new biography of Drury, analysing the relationship between him and Wittgenstein, The Selected Writings of Maurice O’Connor Drury features previously unpublished archival sources. Beautifully written and carefully selected, each piece reveals the impact of Wittgenstein’s teachings, shedding light on the friendship and thinking of one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Forward, by Ray Monk
Abbreviations
Preface
I. Drury and Wittgenstein: Kindred Souls by John Hayes
II. Recollections of Wittgenstein
- Contribution to a BBC Symposium
- Conversations with Wittgenstein
- Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein
III. Philosophical Writings
- Methods of Philosophy Lecture: 1935
- Letters to a Student of Philosophy: 1954
- Six Reflections Shared with Rush Rhees
- University College Dublin Lecture: 1967
- Letter to Rush Rhees
IV. On Religion
- Letters to Rhees
- Undated Letter Extract
- Letter to D.Z. Phillips: 23 July 1964
V. On Medicine, Psychiatry and Psychology
- The Danger of Words
- Review of Danger of Words by Ilham Dilman
- Fact and Hypothesis
- Letters to Rhees
- Introductory Lectures on Hypnosis
- Counsel to Townsend
VI. Biographical & Historical Notes
Index
About the Author :
John Hayes is Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland.
Review :
Intelligently and humanely curated by its editor, this collection will remain the definitive volume on Drury’s life and his lifedefining relationship with Wittgenstein.
Splendid book . . . [that] provides an interesting, original perspective on Wittgenstein’s thought . . . A substantial work excellently assembled and edited by Prof John Hayes. It is of interest to the general reader as well as to students of philosophy or psychiatry.
For readers who are too busy, hassled or otherwise preoccupied to read beyond the first lines of this review, I will summarise at this point: this volume is entirely splendid and is, in my view, one of the most important books related to psychiatry in Ireland to be published in recent times.
As shown by the work of Störring, Ziehen, Jaspers, Janet, Mourgue, Morselli, Ey, Lanteri-Laura, Martin-Santos, Kimura, etc., the psychiatrist-philosopher remains a cultural archetype. Con Drury’s work showed that such a figure was also present in Great Britain.
Lovingly edited by John Hayes, this facsimiled volume illustrates the usefulness to Psychiatry of conceptual analysis and of a way of thinking that, alas, is now rarely exercised by its practitioners.
