The Selected Writings of Maurice O'Connor Drury - (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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. The Selected Writings of Maurice O'Connor Drurybrings 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 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.

Alongside a foreword by Monk and an introduction presenting a new biography of Drury, analysing the relationship between him and Wittgenstein, this collection features previously unpublished archival sources.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.

Review Quotes

A 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.
The Irish Times

But beyond Drury's recollections of, and conversations with, Wittgenstein, many of the writings in this collection have independent value-not least Drury's essay on the method of philosophy, his exchanges with Rush Rhees on religion, and his most famous work, The Danger of Words.
Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal

This wide-ranging selection of his writings by John Hayes of the University of Limerick is a welcome and long overdue publication . . . The collection combines Drury's much-cited recollections of Wittgenstein with his own philosophical writings, including his extensive correspondence with Rush Rhees (Wittgenstein's main literary executor), reflections on religion, and essays on medicine, psychiatry and hypnosis. The editor concedes that were it not for Drury's association with Wittgenstein the collection might not have found its way into print, but it is all the more valuable for this: Ray Monk, Wittgenstein's biographer, noted of Drury's only philosophical work published during his lifetime, The Danger of Words (1973, reprinted in this collection), that it was "the most truly Wittgensteinian work published by any of Wittgenstein's students.
Dublin Review of Books

About the Author

John Hayes is Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland.

Ray Monk is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton, UK. He has published award-winning biographies of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell. His most recent book is Inside the Centre: the Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2012, Jonathan Cape).