Anscombe’s ‘Teachers’ JEREMY WANDERER This article is an investigation into G. E. M. Anscombe’s suggestion that there can be cases where belief takes a personal object, through an examination of the role that the activity of teaching plays in Anscombe’s discussion. By contrasting various kinds of ‘teachers’ that feature in her discussion, it is argued that the best way of understanding the idea of believing someone personally is to situate the relevant encounter within the social, conversational framework of ‘engaged reasoning’. Key features of this framework are highlighted, and are used to characterise the distinctive kind of teaching and learning germane to Anscombe’s suggestion. In a largely neglected paper, G. E. M. Anscombe explores what she describes as a largely neglected topic in epistemology, viz. that of believing someone, where ‘belief’ takes a personal object—‘believing x that p’ (p. 142). 1 One striking feature of the paper is the prominent role played by the paired activities of teaching and learning in Anscombe’s explorations of what it is to believe someone. Whilst not all instances of learning from another involve believing that person and not all instances of teaching aim at being believed personally, Anscombe seems to suggest that there is a categorical connection between learning from teaching in key cases and believing that person, such that investigating what it is to believe someone is an investigation into the nature of learning from teaching in these cases, and vice versa. Anscombe’s remarks in the paper are terse and tentative. My aim here is to focus on her reflections on learning from teaching as a way of developing an understanding of what it is to believe someone. Whilst I will pay close attention to the text, this is not an exercise in Anscombe exegesis. It is an attempt to construct a framework for thinking about these issues that is inspired by Anscombe’s brief but suggestive discussion. I THE CAST The case of learning from teaching that involves believing someone is illustrated in Anscombe’s paper through a series of implied contrasts. Let us begin with a perfunctory characterisation of these contrasts, to be developed more fully in subsequent sections. Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 47, No. 2, 2013 © 2013 The Author. Journal of Philosophy of Education © 2013 Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.