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Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

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How did it come about that in the epoch of the greatest imaginable political evil, of the Holocaust and of the Gulag, of Hitler and Stalin, Oxford philosophy tended to empty moral terms of any absolute significance? The philosophy is not just presented alongside the biography, but the authors seem to have managed to show how the developments were linked - thus Foot's philosophical persuasion that ethics is more than a formal study (despite Hare), Anscombe's revisiting of Aristotelian methods in Intentions and in virtue ethics. I have warm feelings about the Vienna Circle because it was a collection of brilliant people who came together at an interesting time and place, but I do think that some of their followers went too far in reducing philosophy to logic and dismissing legitmate questions as "nonsense" in an aggressive and shaming way. it's so enjoyable to read beyond their lives in academia and see them as the bright women that they were.

Metaphysical Animals is a sort of origin story of four female philosophers who met as undergraduates at Oxford in the 1930s: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. It makes for a good story also invites you to think and experience some of these same things for yourself.The book focuses mainly on the 1930s to the 1950s, following the four from their undergraduate years to the start of their professional careers. Speaking as Dean, she warned that any misstep, any rule-breaking or scandal, would injure not only themselves but future generations of aspirant women scholars.

I wish I had read this text before my travels so I'd had a better idea of the different colleges and noteworthy sights! As the authors state, on the heels of a pandemic, ‘it is perhaps time to ask again, as these women did after the Second World War: What sort of animal is a human being? After hearing what actually happened in the concentration camps, all Philippa Foot wants to is be able to say “what the Nazi’s did was bad”.There appears to be a bit of an industry growing up around the four philosophers whose works and lives are contained in this book. Besides the specific philosophical issues Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman do an excellent job of showing the personal interrelationship of the four friends. The decor of this story is WOII Oxford, emptied of men, but full of academic and non-academic refugees, fear, insecurity and letters about the death of brothers, friends and lovers. A letter from her father pointed the way forward: ‘The great thing is, to clear one’s mind and REFUSE TO ACCEPT OUTWORN PRESUPPOSITIONS. BMB sent Iris to ‘work in the garden under the care of the lady head gardener’, in the hope that the ‘less stimulating’ atmosphere would calm her.

The young Iris could be found in the greenhouse, dressed in the fawn-coloured tunic and woollen blouse that was the school’s uniform, ‘pricking out seedlings . Murdoch is already well-known as a novelist and as the subject of a Hollywood biopic starring Kate Winslet and Judi Dench. However, I was confused at times by the choice of using first and last, only first, or only last names. I did not find the Truman honorary degree story that bookends the text particularly helpful though it was a significant event in Elizabeth Anscombe’s life.

Prudence Smith, another Somervillian sent to Mrs Z, complained to her boyfriend: ‘she suggests in all sobriety that I lie in a cold bath .

Mrs Z had another tutee that year, on whom she might well have risked a forecast, Miss Iris Murdoch. I really enjoyed learning about these women’s lives and the book has sparked my interest in further reading their philosophies as well as exploring more feminine (feminist) metaphysical and moral perspectives, but this was a difficult read to stay focused on and enjoy for its own sake. Although each woman came to be known for her work in moral philosophy, each one's thinking differed from the others' in notable ways, and Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman deftly portray the particular fixations of each, in relation to the social and cultural turmoil that surrounded them.They would stay with the Scruttons until the following April, when they received permits for a new life in Palestine. Despite Prue’s scepticism, the unusual method proved so successful that she feared that in her dying moments she would find Goodwin’s ‘Greek Moods and Tenses’ marching through her head.

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