Wednesday

C.S. Lewis was a very good debater. He wasn't as viciously clever as Belloc, nor as disarmingly effective as Chesterton, but he was good. They say he never lost a debate while at Oxford. Until he ran into Elizabeth Anscombe. Accounts vary. Some say she shredded Lewis; others say it was mostly a draw, with a slight edge to Anscombe. Regardless, we know it rattled Lewis. Many have assumed that Anscombe must've been some post-modern freakazoid thinker who tripped up Lewis with deconstructionalist arguments or other bizarre angles that he hadn't delved into. Not so. Anscombe was a traditionalist Catholic. Brilliant, but very Catholic. I've never read anything by her, but while searching for information about the eccentric Wittgenstein (pronounced, I think, "Vittgenstine"), I discovered that a new book of her philosophical essays is coming out later this year: From Plato to Wittgenstein: Essays by GEM Anscombe. It looks excellent. I've added it to my "Wish List."