Table Of Content“For several decades Anselm Müller’s name has been well known to those
working in certain areas of practical philosophy, but very little of his
output has been available in English. This excellent and welcome collec-
tion of papers discussing his contributions will help to change that situa-
tion. Müller has much to teach us about the work of Aristotle, Aquinas,
Wittgenstein and Anscombe.”
Jonathan Dancy, University of Texas at Austin, USA
“Anselm Müller is one of the most perceptive, original, profound, and
intellectually honest philosophers alive today. In particular, his work in
ethics and on practical rationality is without peer in recent decades, and
in addition constitutes an essential contribution to neo-Aristotelian
thought. This volume is a very timely celebration of Müller’s philosophy,
the first of its kind, with contributions by luminaries and new voices
alike”
Roger Teichmann, St Hilda’s College, Oxford, UK
Teleological Structures in Human Life
This is the first collection of essays devoted to the thought of Anselm W. Müller.
It brings to the attention of the English-speaking world an influential and
highly regarded philosopher who has made important contributions to a wide
range of philosophical debates.
Arguably, Müller’s most important contributions are to the philosophy
of action and virtue ethics. The contributors, who include friends, col-
leagues, and former students, engage with different aspects of Müller’s
thought in these areas. Subjects include his interpretation of Aristotle and
Wittgenstein, the teleology of thought and action, the Aristotelian dis-
tinction between poiēsis and praxis and its application to ethical upbring-
ing, and the possibility of practical knowledge and practical truth.
Teleological Structures in Human Life will be of interest to researchers
and advanced students working on virtue ethics, philosophy of action,
and practical reasoning.
Christian Kietzmann is Assistant Professor at Friedrich-Alexander-
Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. He has published on the philosophy of
action, the nature or normativity, philosophical anthropology, and the
philosophies of Aristotle and G.E.M. Anscombe. His book Handeln aus
Gründen als praktisches Schliessen was published in 2019.
Routledge Festschrifts in Philosophy
Mind, Language and Morality
Essays in Honor of Mark Platts
Edited by Gustavo Ortiz Millán and Juan Antonio Cruz Parcero
Sensations, Thoughts, Language
Essays in Honor of Brian Loar
Edited by Arthur Sullivan
Common Sense Metaphysics
Essays in Honor of Lynne Rudder Baker
Edited by Luis R. G. Oliveira and Kevin Corcoran
Wittgenstein and Beyond
Essays in Honour of Hans-Johann Glock
Edited by Christoph C. Pfisterer, Nicole Rathgeb, and Eva Schmidt
Teleological Structures in Human Life
Essays in Honor of Anselm W. Müller
Edited by Christian Kietzmann
For more information about this series, please visit:
https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Festschrifts-in-Philosophy/book-
series/RFSP
Teleological Structures in
Human Life
Essays in Honor of Anselm W. Müller
Edited by Christian Kietzmann
First published 2023
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Christian Kietzmann;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Christian Kietzmann to be identified as the author of
the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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tion and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-0-367-56798-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-60863-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-10077-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003100775
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Contents
Introduction 1
CHRISTIAN KIETZMANN
1 Wittgenstein and Aristotle at Oxford 15
ANTHONY KENNY
2 Anscombe on the Voluntary Character of Negligence 26
JENNIFER A. FREY
3 Practical Reasoning and Practical Truth 42
A. W. PRICE
4 Conscience and Praxis 62
GAVIN LAWRENCE
5 Having the Meaning of Life in View 90
ULF HLOBIL
6 Should Intro Ethics Make You a Better Person? 113
KATHARINA NIESWANDT
7 Ethical Naturalism and the Guise of the Good 135
DAWA OMETTO
8 On the Mystical Point of Virtue 159
TIMO-PETER ERTZ
9 Is Moral Education a Craft? Poiesis, Praxis, and
Ethical Upbringing 177
MICAH LOTT
viii Contents
10 Certainty and Possibility 200
P. M. S. HACKER
11 Grounding and Support: Foundations, Coherence,
and “Deep Disagreement” in Ludwig Wittgenstein 217
ANDREAS KREBS
Bibliography of A. W. Müller 227
Index 234
Introduction
Christian Kietzmann
Anselm Winfried Müller is one of the most profound and most original
thinkers of his generation. Müller’s talent was recognized in the 1960s
when he studied and taught at Oxford among an exceptionally bright
and gifted cohort of students. At the time, he was offered a career at
Oxford, but—for personal reasons—declined and later joined the staff of
the University of Trier in Germany. In subsequent years, he published
several books and a substantial number of papers in German—which,
however, remained virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. He
also published papers in English from time to time, and some of them,
such as “How Theoretical Is Practical Reason?” and “Radical Subjectivity,”
have been frequently cited. Nevertheless, for a long time, he and his work
have remained something of an insider tip.1
Fortunately, this is changing. For a few years now, there has been
renewed interest in his work. No doubt this is in part due to the renais-
sance of the work of his teacher and friend G.E.M. Anscombe and in part
due to a sustained interest in neo-Aristotelian accounts in ethics, to which
Müller has made important contributions. But it is also due to the fact
that Müller has been a recurrent visiting professor at the University of
Chicago, where he has had the chance to influence a new generation of
English-speaking philosophers. Over the past ten years, there have been
conferences in his honor in Chicago and at the Universities of Basel
(Switzerland) and Leipzig (Germany). And last but not least, his scattered
English publications, as well as some new work, will soon be published
in two volumes of collected papers.
Müller has worked on a wide range of topics, including metaphysics
(causation, the first person, identity), the history of philosophy (Aristotle,
Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G.E.M. Anscombe), and the work
of some contemporaries (John L. Mackie, Philippa Foot, Arthur N. Prior,
Michael Dummett, Peter T. Geach). Arguably, his most important contri-
butions are to the philosophy of action and so-called virtue ethics.2
Within an Aristotelian framework, he investigates the nature of practical
thought, the teleologies characteristic of mental life—in particular, the
varieties of teleology involved in practical thinking—and the possibility
DOI: 10.4324/9781003100775-1
