Item 760 - Notebook by Robert Thouless containing notes on books read, lectures, and recollections of Wittgenstein

1 vol.: hardback notebook, c. 180 x 117 x 10 mm. 74 ff. (including two free endpapers, one used for notes)
Paginated 1-41 from one end, with two following ff. used but unnumbered. 24 blank ff. in centre. Book also used from other end in: 26 ff (modern foliation in pencil); ff 18 and 19 are pasted together.

Previously in the possession of Brian McGuinness

Purchased from Bernard Quaritch Ltd, Sept. 2013.

Notes on books and articles read at one end of book, with partial index written out on front cover: W. S. Maugham, Strictly Personal; W. V. Quine, Mathematical Logic; J. R. Sturge-Whiting, The Mystery of Versailles and C. A. E. Mobery & E. F. Jourdain, An Adventure; L. J. Bendit, Paranormal Cognition: [its place] in Human Psychology; E. J. Garrett, My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship. G S. Brown, 'Statistical Significance in Psychical Research' (article from Nature); Kendall, M. G. & Babington-Smith, B., 'Second Paper on Random Sampling Numbers' and 'Randomness and Random Sampling Numbers (articles from Supplement to the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society) and 'Tables of Random Sampling Numbers' (no. XXIV of Tracts for Computers, ed. E. S. Pearson); Korzybski, A., Science and Sanity: an introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics'; Pearson, E. S., 'William Sealy Gosset, 1876-1937. "Student as Statistician"' (article in Biometrika*).

Notes on indication of probability in symbolic logic on p. 27 and a record of a dream 44/45, with interpretation on p. 29. Notes on 'Candidates for Perrot (1954) [now the Perrot-Warwick Fund, which awards grants for research in parapsychology], p. 38. Notes 'from Brown's dissertation' and Thouless's own 'P K expt' at end of this section.

Labelled 'R. H. Thouless, Dept. of Education, 17 Brookside, Cambridge', on inside cover at other end, with note from Oct. 1942. Parts of pages cut away at top in this section of the book to provide index: sections labelled 'Lectures', 1942-1943; 'Practical' - notes on teaching, individual students, results of questionnaire, and 'Wittgenstein'. This section includes notes on Norman Malcolm's 1958 memoir, which seems to have inspired Thouless to write out 'My own recollections'. Includes record of their first meeting, and notes taken from Thouless' personal diaries, 1941-1945. Also includes more general thoughts on their friendship, Thouless' impression of Wittgenstein's opinions of his pupils, Francis Skinner, Wittgenstein's thoughts on war, his hospital porter work, and death.

WITT: Papers of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Add. MS a. 522: Composite typescript of Wittgenstein's Blue Book including Wittgenstein's amendments, given by the philosopher to Robert Thouless.