Metaphysical Animals

How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

Author: Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman

A ground-breaking book that examines the place of women in twentieth-century philosophy and is a call to arms for the present day

"A vibrant portrait of four college friends-Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Mary Midgley-who formed a new philosophical tradition while Oxford's men were away at war"--

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Summary

A ground-breaking book that examines the place of women in twentieth-century philosophy and is a call to arms for the present day

"A vibrant portrait of four college friends-Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Mary Midgley-who formed a new philosophical tradition while Oxford's men were away at war"--

Description

'A wonderful, important and also a necessary book, which sets the records straight... and celebrates a remarkable quartet of women thinkers' Peter Conradi**AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4'S BOOK OF THE WEEK**Picked as a Guardian read for summer 2022' A splendidly entertaining book, fizzing with character and incident' Spectator'Invigorating... told with terrific fluency and humour' Sunday Times____'In philosophy, one must start from scratch - & it takes a very long time to reach scratch'Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe were philosophy students at Oxford during the Second World War when most male undergraduates (and many tutors) were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors, the four friends developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations.How, they asked, do we find our way through the devastation of what we have created? Not even the great thinkers of the past or the logical innovators and Existentialists of the early twentieth century could make sense of this new human reality. So, in search of an answer, the four friends set out to bring philosophy back to life.Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a vivid blend of philosophy and recovered history - bringing back the women who shared ideas, as well as sofas, shoes and even lovers. Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman show how from the disorder and despair of the war, four brilliant friends reinvigorated philosophy and created a way of ethical thinking that remains with us today.

Critic Reviews

“Irresistible... Highly evocative ... Bring[s] to life an important episode in intellectual history, and [has] made me again grateful that I was for a time a contemporary of these unforgettable women”

Excellent -- Bonnie Garmus Guardian
Lively ... This fascinating work of historico-logico-feminism shows... how women fought their way on to the world stage of philosophy and turned its spotlight away from an analytical desert on to what was really important - moral clarity, wisdom and truth -- John Walsh Sunday Times
The narrative is of four brilliant women finding their voices, opposing received wisdom, and developing an alternative picture of human beings and their place in the world... To read this story is to be reminded...that the life of the mind can be as intense and eventful as friendship itself -- Anil Gomes Guardian
Joyful... These four are enlivening companions... four glorious heroines, confident and curious, focused on the world and not on themselves Spectator
Irresistible... Highly evocative... Bring[s] to life an important episode in intellectual history, and [has] made me again grateful that I was for a time a contemporary of these unforgettable women -- Thomas Nagel London Review of Books

About the Author

Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman are philosophy lecturers and friends. Mac Cumhaill is an expert in the philosophy of perception and aesthetics at Durham University, home of the Mary Midgley Papers; Wiseman lectures at Liverpool University and is a recognised authority on the work of Elizabeth Anscombe.Their interest in the group of philosophers in this book sprang from a concern about their students- why were so many brilliant female fledgling philosophers leaving the discipline? Clare and Rachael began telling the story of Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe to inspire the next generation.Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman are the co-directors of , a pioneering scholarly project that focuses attention on the four women and makes the case for analytic philosophy's first all-female philosophical school. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman's mode of collaboration continues the tradition started by the group they study.They live in Newcastle, the city to which Mary Midgley moved in 1951. In the final few years of her life Clare and Rachael became good friends with Mary. When she died, aged 99, they were inspired to tell this story.