The historical-philosophical significance of Oxford tutorials

In this article we analyse possible uses of the Tree of Philosophers for the historical understanding of Oxford ordinary language philosophy. We focus initially on the University of Cambridge, tackling the difficulties of situating Wittgenstein’s master-student relationship in the Tree. This case also helps us highlight the impor- tance of the personal – rather than the purely academic – connection between teach- er and pupil in the English philosophical context in the 1920s and 1930s. Then we move to the primary focus of the present article: Oxford tutorials – expres- sions of relationships that are both personal and institutional between teacher and student – and their role in the history of ordinary language philosophy from the 1930s to the 1960s. For this purpose, we investigate Gilbert Ryle’s central position at Oxford, exploring in more detail the institutional significance of the tutoring relationship. This leads us to consider some less conventional yet highly interesting aspects of the history of philosophy, such as Ryle’s evaluations of his own students. After that, we take into account J.L. Austin’s genealogy on the Tree, by listing his many pupils at Magdalen College and drawing on personal testimony. Since many of these students pursued paths outside academic philosophy, reconstructing the Tree makes us able to uncover previously hidden and unexplored pieces of ordinary language philosophy and its history. Finally, we briefly discuss the cases of Elizabeth Anscombe and Iris Murdoch as tutors, in order to reestablish the centrality of Oxford tutorials for students’ flourishing and academic success. On the whole, the Tree of Philosophers proves to be a potentially very useful tool for exploring the “external” history of ordinary language philosophy in Oxford in interesting and unconvention- al ways.