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Animales metafísicos (Editorial Anagrama)
La peripecia vital e intelectual de cuatro mujeres que dejaron huella en la filosofía, en unos tiempos en que estaba dominada por los hombres.
Oxford, 1 de mayo de 1956. En la solemnidad de la Biblioteca Bodleiana, el claustro de la universidad se ha reunido para decidir si se le concede un honoris causa al expresidente de los Estados Unidos Harry S. Truman. Una de las personas presentes, la filósofa Elizabeth Anscombe, se opone con vehemencia, porque considera que este reconocimiento no debe concederse a quien, al ordenar el bombardeo de Hiroshima y Nagasaki, fue culpable de la muerte de miles de inocentes.
En unos tiempos en que la filosofía había virado hacia los métodos analíticos y científicos del positivismo lógico, ella y sus colegas y amigas en Oxford Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch y Mary Midgley, bajo el impacto de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, consideraron que la filosofía debía afrontar de nuevo las grandes preguntas éticas: ¿qué es moralmente correcto? ¿Qué principios morales deberíamos seguir? ¿Existe un criterio objetivo de moralidad?
Este libro reconstruye la peripecia vital e intelectual de estas cuatro mujeres que dejaron su huella en la filosofía, en unos tiempos en que esta disciplina estaba dominada por los hombres.
«Cuenta la fascinante historia de cuatro mujeres brillantes, cuyo audaz pensamiento ajeno a las modas –y su papel como profesoras y mentoras– cambió el rostro de la filosofía… Una maravillosa historia de amor, amistad y excentricidad» (Cathy Mason, Literary Review).
«Una biografía coral que atrapa porque es apasionante y está plagada de anécdotas, pero que al mismo tiempo es, como sus protagonistas, profundamente seria. Un triunfo» (Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday).
«Irresistible… Cuatro mujeres inolvidables» (Thomas Nagel, London Review of Books).
«Leer esta historia es recordar las barreras institucionales que impidieron que las mujeres estudiaran filosofía, el coraje y la determinación de quien decidió hacerlo de todos modos, y la forma en que la vida de la mente puede ser tan intensa y agitada como la amistad misma» (Anil Gomes, The Guardian).
Oxford, 1 de mayo de 1956. En la solemnidad de la Biblioteca Bodleiana, el claustro de la universidad se ha reunido para decidir si se le concede un honoris causa al expresidente de los Estados Unidos Harry S. Truman. Una de las personas presentes, la filósofa Elizabeth Anscombe, se opone con vehemencia, porque considera que este reconocimiento no debe concederse a quien, al ordenar el bombardeo de Hiroshima y Nagasaki, fue culpable de la muerte de miles de inocentes.
En unos tiempos en que la filosofía había virado hacia los métodos analíticos y científicos del positivismo lógico, ella y sus colegas y amigas en Oxford Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch y Mary Midgley, bajo el impacto de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, consideraron que la filosofía debía afrontar de nuevo las grandes preguntas éticas: ¿qué es moralmente correcto? ¿Qué principios morales deberíamos seguir? ¿Existe un criterio objetivo de moralidad?
Este libro reconstruye la peripecia vital e intelectual de estas cuatro mujeres que dejaron su huella en la filosofía, en unos tiempos en que esta disciplina estaba dominada por los hombres.
«Cuenta la fascinante historia de cuatro mujeres brillantes, cuyo audaz pensamiento ajeno a las modas –y su papel como profesoras y mentoras– cambió el rostro de la filosofía… Una maravillosa historia de amor, amistad y excentricidad» (Cathy Mason, Literary Review).
«Una biografía coral que atrapa porque es apasionante y está plagada de anécdotas, pero que al mismo tiempo es, como sus protagonistas, profundamente seria. Un triunfo» (Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday).
«Irresistible… Cuatro mujeres inolvidables» (Thomas Nagel, London Review of Books).
«Leer esta historia es recordar las barreras institucionales que impidieron que las mujeres estudiaran filosofía, el coraje y la determinación de quien decidió hacerlo de todos modos, y la forma en que la vida de la mente puede ser tan intensa y agitada como la amistad misma» (Anil Gomes, The Guardian).
472 pages, Paperback
First published February 3, 2022
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May 8, 2022
A fascinating account of key moments in the lives of four women who came together through their shared love of philosophy and dedication to thought. Authors Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman are academics in the field of philosophy and together they’ve produced a survey of the lives and works of writers and philosophers Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Elizabeth Anscombe and Phillipa Foot. It’s an exhaustively-researched piece that also benefits from the authors’ meetings with the sole, surviving group member Mary Midgley in her retirement home. But this goes beyond the frameworks of standard group biography, it’s also a plea for a reflective form of philosophy that grapples with broader questions of how best to live well, and incorporates a useful introduction to the central schools of thought in British philosophy, over the early part of the twentieth century.
One of the questions it poses, was first raised by Midgley in 1953, what might philosophy be if its history had not been so firmly tied to the visions of men? And so many of the central figures in British philosophy – and elsewhere in Europe – have been male, mostly bachelors, mostly socially isolated or even alienated. Women on the other hand, Midgley maintained, were more likely to be embroiled in intimate relationships with partners and friends, be engaged in their communities or have experienced the raising of children. Their sense of their world, their worlds themselves, often vastly different from that of the men around them.
This interest in a philosophy that’s not divorced from the day to day, or the realities of engaging with human environments, was one that did not hold sway at the point when Midgley, Foot, Murdoch and Anscombe came to Oxford as students in the late 1930s. At this point British philosophy, in particular, was steeped in an analytical, scientific tradition, questions around how to have an ethical life, notions of beauty or truth were, more or less, off the table. But these four women came together at a moment of change, as the world moved towards war, and as men were called up, Oxford’s atmosphere shifted. Suddenly older lecturers interested in metaphysical issues came back to the fore, and female students once cowed into silence by crowds of arrogant, young men, had space to explore their own concerns and develop their own approaches. It was a time that’s been dubbed the ‘golden age of female philosophy’. War also made certain ways of thinking more pressing, including the rights and wrongs of human actions – individually and collectively.
Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman open in 1953 with a dramatic event that demonstrates this notion. A group of indignant, male, Oxford Dons set out to put women in their place. A majority of Dons were proposing to give an honorary degree to former American president Harry S. Truman but rumours abounded that Oxford women were trying to stop this from happening. These women were represented by Elizabeth Anscombe who believed it morally wrong to celebrate a man who was partly responsible for mass murder in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her perspective was so vastly different from that of the men she worked alongside, and why/how this was the case is then addressed as the authors look back to 1938 and the years following, and the ways in which Anscombe and her friends formulated another way of looking at ethics and morality.
We see Scrutton and Murdoch meet at Somerville, later joined by Foot, a strange place in which trousers were considered a cause for reprimand but brainy girls were encouraged. An Oxford in which male tutors saw female students as fair game – wife or mistress fodder - thinking nothing of propositioning a woman student mid tutorial. By the end of the ‘phoney war’ these three had found Anscombe and their circle was complete. A circle that endured for years, sometimes separated and fragmented, but always a fertile source for ideas and a form of support. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman mix biography and anecdote – the Oxford paper that jokingly recommended carrying a white pekingese during blackouts - with elements of philosophy and history, much of which I found entertaining, thought-provoking or gripping. Scenes such as Mary and Iris in wartime London eating their fish-paste sandwiches in butterfly-filled, London squares because the mass flight of birds from the bombing has allowed caterpillars to thrive; Iris’s later travels and meetings with Sartre; Elizabeth’s tangles with Wittgenstein at Cambridge.
It's a well-edited piece, it’s also quite dense, and there were times when the detail was a little overwhelming. But it also comes with extensive notes and useful suggestions for further reading, as well as an impressive list of contemporary thinkers whose work has been influenced by one or more of these women.
Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Doubleday for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
One of the questions it poses, was first raised by Midgley in 1953, what might philosophy be if its history had not been so firmly tied to the visions of men? And so many of the central figures in British philosophy – and elsewhere in Europe – have been male, mostly bachelors, mostly socially isolated or even alienated. Women on the other hand, Midgley maintained, were more likely to be embroiled in intimate relationships with partners and friends, be engaged in their communities or have experienced the raising of children. Their sense of their world, their worlds themselves, often vastly different from that of the men around them.
This interest in a philosophy that’s not divorced from the day to day, or the realities of engaging with human environments, was one that did not hold sway at the point when Midgley, Foot, Murdoch and Anscombe came to Oxford as students in the late 1930s. At this point British philosophy, in particular, was steeped in an analytical, scientific tradition, questions around how to have an ethical life, notions of beauty or truth were, more or less, off the table. But these four women came together at a moment of change, as the world moved towards war, and as men were called up, Oxford’s atmosphere shifted. Suddenly older lecturers interested in metaphysical issues came back to the fore, and female students once cowed into silence by crowds of arrogant, young men, had space to explore their own concerns and develop their own approaches. It was a time that’s been dubbed the ‘golden age of female philosophy’. War also made certain ways of thinking more pressing, including the rights and wrongs of human actions – individually and collectively.
Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman open in 1953 with a dramatic event that demonstrates this notion. A group of indignant, male, Oxford Dons set out to put women in their place. A majority of Dons were proposing to give an honorary degree to former American president Harry S. Truman but rumours abounded that Oxford women were trying to stop this from happening. These women were represented by Elizabeth Anscombe who believed it morally wrong to celebrate a man who was partly responsible for mass murder in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her perspective was so vastly different from that of the men she worked alongside, and why/how this was the case is then addressed as the authors look back to 1938 and the years following, and the ways in which Anscombe and her friends formulated another way of looking at ethics and morality.
We see Scrutton and Murdoch meet at Somerville, later joined by Foot, a strange place in which trousers were considered a cause for reprimand but brainy girls were encouraged. An Oxford in which male tutors saw female students as fair game – wife or mistress fodder - thinking nothing of propositioning a woman student mid tutorial. By the end of the ‘phoney war’ these three had found Anscombe and their circle was complete. A circle that endured for years, sometimes separated and fragmented, but always a fertile source for ideas and a form of support. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman mix biography and anecdote – the Oxford paper that jokingly recommended carrying a white pekingese during blackouts - with elements of philosophy and history, much of which I found entertaining, thought-provoking or gripping. Scenes such as Mary and Iris in wartime London eating their fish-paste sandwiches in butterfly-filled, London squares because the mass flight of birds from the bombing has allowed caterpillars to thrive; Iris’s later travels and meetings with Sartre; Elizabeth’s tangles with Wittgenstein at Cambridge.
It's a well-edited piece, it’s also quite dense, and there were times when the detail was a little overwhelming. But it also comes with extensive notes and useful suggestions for further reading, as well as an impressive list of contemporary thinkers whose work has been influenced by one or more of these women.
Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Doubleday for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
March 19, 2022
If you read my review of Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails, you know that I’m duff at philosophical thinking, but totally love gossip about philosophers, especially in wartime. As a reader and teacher of contemporary British literature in the latter 20th century, I’d of course read several novels by Iris Murdoch (although she’d never been one of my favourites) and knew that she’d been a philosophy don at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Elizabeth (G. E. M.) Anscombe I knew from the title pages of translations of Wittgenstein, whose ideas seemed a confusing mixture of psychology and linguistics consisting of language games. Philippa Foot was the creator of the famous Trolley problem, which I found utterly silly, like most philosophic ‘thought experiments’ (where fat men get stuck in the opening of caves which are about to be flooded or Rawls’ original position behind of veil of ignorance – I think there’s one where you have to shove a fat man in front of a train). But a few years ago, reading the military historian M. R. D. Foot’s autobiography, I found out that Iris and Philippa had been roommates in wartime and that he had an affair with Iris till she dumped him for an economist (who ended up advising Harold Wilson), and he married Philippa on the rebound. Mary Midgley I knew nothing of but since discovered she was famous for her own thought experiment where a Japanese Samurai cleaves a haunch off an innocent passerby to test his new sword. (Given that the code of Bushido might oblige the Samurai to turn the sword on himself, one can sympathise with his need to test its keenness.) This book ends in 1956 with Elizabeth’s protest against Oxford’s awarding an honorary degree to former president Truman. Iris was setting up as a novelist, Philippa was a fellow at Somerville. Soon she would be betrayed by Michael and eventually teach at UCLA, whilst remaining Iris’s BF. Mary had taken a hiatus from academia to be a wife and mother to a philosophy don at Newcastle, but would return in her fifties as a major force in British philosophy.
In the late 1930s the women’s colleges at Oxford were but a marginal appendage to the University, very much as the Somerville alumna Dorothy Sayer describes in Gaudy Night. They were recent foundations with none of the wealth or magnificent architecture of the ancient men’s colleges. But the devotion of the fellows to scholarship and to the success of their students was uncompromising. Women students pursued to same curriculum and took the same examinations as the men. Iris, Mary, and Elizabeth took first in ‘Greats’ – a tremendously demanding combination of Classics and ancient and modern philosophy that makes any contemporary humanist scholar (such as myself) feel like a scarcely literate barbarian. Mary and Iris also participated in Eduard Fraenkel’s Aeschylus seminar, contributing to his awesome edition of the Agamemnon and enduring his deplorable habit of groping women students, behaviour intolerable today.
Philippa, reared as an aristocrat by governesses who taught her nothing, took the softer option of PPE (now the common choice of future British politicians) and achieved a first as well. But only now can I appreciate what a brilliant ethical philosopher she was. In a climate dominated by linguistic philosophers speaking an ‘ordinary language’ and treating matters of good and evil as purely emotional preferences (Ayer) or arbitrary commands (Hare), Foot rediscovered the ethical principles expounded by Aristotle and Aquinas and developed a theory of Natural Goodness. In our debased colloquial language it sounds to some today like an ingredient advertised in flavoured fruit juice, but simply means that virtuous behaviour is natural in us as human beings living with each other. Aristotle believed we could be good at living just as we can be good at sport or carpentry, and that virtuous qualities such as honesty and courage and prudence (phronesis in Greek) were the qualities that enable us to do so. I used to regret that when I was at Georgetown our philosophy curriculum was so weighted with scholastic tradition that I was utterly unsuited to what passed for philosophy in most secular American universities. Reading Natural Goodness now made me take my old copy of Aristotle’s Ethics off the shelf. My Jesuit education had seemed like old junk in the attic, but like on Antiques Roadshow, Philippa Foot revalued it as a priceless heirloom. Still, I find Anscombe’s Roman Catholic writings annoying – I wonder if C. S. Lewis was thinking of her when he suggested that Just War theory was devised for princes, to deter a robber baron about to send his knights to bash up another robber baron’s demesne, rather than a citizen in a democracy faced with a draft notice. The Roman Catholic articles in Anscombe’s collected papers make one think she left her philosopher’s gown on the riverbank when she plunged into the Tiber. As an amateur evolutionist I am also reading Mary Midgley’s The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene with enjoyment as well as Murdoch’s The Nice and the Good, especially for a character based on Philippa.
For readers interested in philosophy, women’s history, and mid-twentieth-century English culture, Metaphysical Animals is a most rewarding study. But for me it is most delightful simply as a story about friendship and a special kind of love. In the Ethics, Aristotle describes varieties of friendship. The highest and the most enduring is between friends who admire each other’s character. These women exemplified that form of friendship perfectly.
In the late 1930s the women’s colleges at Oxford were but a marginal appendage to the University, very much as the Somerville alumna Dorothy Sayer describes in Gaudy Night. They were recent foundations with none of the wealth or magnificent architecture of the ancient men’s colleges. But the devotion of the fellows to scholarship and to the success of their students was uncompromising. Women students pursued to same curriculum and took the same examinations as the men. Iris, Mary, and Elizabeth took first in ‘Greats’ – a tremendously demanding combination of Classics and ancient and modern philosophy that makes any contemporary humanist scholar (such as myself) feel like a scarcely literate barbarian. Mary and Iris also participated in Eduard Fraenkel’s Aeschylus seminar, contributing to his awesome edition of the Agamemnon and enduring his deplorable habit of groping women students, behaviour intolerable today.
Philippa, reared as an aristocrat by governesses who taught her nothing, took the softer option of PPE (now the common choice of future British politicians) and achieved a first as well. But only now can I appreciate what a brilliant ethical philosopher she was. In a climate dominated by linguistic philosophers speaking an ‘ordinary language’ and treating matters of good and evil as purely emotional preferences (Ayer) or arbitrary commands (Hare), Foot rediscovered the ethical principles expounded by Aristotle and Aquinas and developed a theory of Natural Goodness. In our debased colloquial language it sounds to some today like an ingredient advertised in flavoured fruit juice, but simply means that virtuous behaviour is natural in us as human beings living with each other. Aristotle believed we could be good at living just as we can be good at sport or carpentry, and that virtuous qualities such as honesty and courage and prudence (phronesis in Greek) were the qualities that enable us to do so. I used to regret that when I was at Georgetown our philosophy curriculum was so weighted with scholastic tradition that I was utterly unsuited to what passed for philosophy in most secular American universities. Reading Natural Goodness now made me take my old copy of Aristotle’s Ethics off the shelf. My Jesuit education had seemed like old junk in the attic, but like on Antiques Roadshow, Philippa Foot revalued it as a priceless heirloom. Still, I find Anscombe’s Roman Catholic writings annoying – I wonder if C. S. Lewis was thinking of her when he suggested that Just War theory was devised for princes, to deter a robber baron about to send his knights to bash up another robber baron’s demesne, rather than a citizen in a democracy faced with a draft notice. The Roman Catholic articles in Anscombe’s collected papers make one think she left her philosopher’s gown on the riverbank when she plunged into the Tiber. As an amateur evolutionist I am also reading Mary Midgley’s The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene with enjoyment as well as Murdoch’s The Nice and the Good, especially for a character based on Philippa.
For readers interested in philosophy, women’s history, and mid-twentieth-century English culture, Metaphysical Animals is a most rewarding study. But for me it is most delightful simply as a story about friendship and a special kind of love. In the Ethics, Aristotle describes varieties of friendship. The highest and the most enduring is between friends who admire each other’s character. These women exemplified that form of friendship perfectly.
July 17, 2022
I confess that I only knew Iris Murdoch as a talented novelist and was unaware that she was also an accomplished philosopher. Though I had heard of Philippa Foot in connection with the famous trolley problem, I knew little about her work, and I had never heard of the other two women, so I was fascinated to learn more about how these four women were a valuable counterweight against the logical postivists and the notion that philosophy should only be concerned with language and with statements that are demonstrably true or false. They helped to turn the tide back toward considering ethics and metaphysics as legitimate subjects of philsophical inquiry.
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. The early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus was one of the villians, but he repudiated his earlier works and by the time these ladies came around he had gone far enough into new directions that he could be a guide and mentor for them. The four women who are the subject to of this book helped to redirect philosophy into a more humane and interesting direction that recoginized that people are far more than calculating machines. As the title says, we are metaphysical animals, so we cannot be fully understood without considering our spiritual, irrational, social and emotional qualities.
I was a bit disappointed that the book was more biography than philosophy. I would have enjoyed a deeper dive into their philosophical works and their intellectual sparring with their contemporaries who pursued other philosophical lines of thought, but I guess I just have to read further about them to get into that aspect of their work.
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. The early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus was one of the villians, but he repudiated his earlier works and by the time these ladies came around he had gone far enough into new directions that he could be a guide and mentor for them. The four women who are the subject to of this book helped to redirect philosophy into a more humane and interesting direction that recoginized that people are far more than calculating machines. As the title says, we are metaphysical animals, so we cannot be fully understood without considering our spiritual, irrational, social and emotional qualities.
I was a bit disappointed that the book was more biography than philosophy. I would have enjoyed a deeper dive into their philosophical works and their intellectual sparring with their contemporaries who pursued other philosophical lines of thought, but I guess I just have to read further about them to get into that aspect of their work.
June 6, 2022
One of the best non-specialist philosophy books I have read recently. 'Metaphysical Animals', depicting intellectual and personal lives of four brilliant women philosophers, shows how philosophy is and ought to relate to everyday life.
As Mary Midgley has observed, "Practically all the great European philosophers have been bachelors," who lived unusually isolated lives, away from women and children. She argued that "the solipsism, scepticism and individualism that is characteristic of the Western philosophical tradition would not feature in a philosophy written by people who had shared intimate friendships with spouses and lovers, been pregnant, raised children, and enjoyed rich and full and varied human lives."
As Mary Midgley has observed, "Practically all the great European philosophers have been bachelors," who lived unusually isolated lives, away from women and children. She argued that "the solipsism, scepticism and individualism that is characteristic of the Western philosophical tradition would not feature in a philosophy written by people who had shared intimate friendships with spouses and lovers, been pregnant, raised children, and enjoyed rich and full and varied human lives."
September 21, 2022
This is NOT a book of philosophy but a finely drawn account of cultural history about philosophers. What I mean is this work is technically not philosophy but an exploration of high culture concerning philosophy. I enjoyed it
June 5, 2022
With a heavy heart, I am giving this book two stars. It is too dry and fragmented; the narrative got absolutely lost on me. Wish more people wrote like Sarah Bakewell.
February 25, 2022
Gosh hard work, and not in a deep and meaningful way. For me, I knew it was time to quit when the discussion on war portrayed it as such a 'dreadful inconvenience' to these bright women, but beneficial in the 5 men who were their contemporaries had been killed and the when morals around the holocaust were seen as giving a good topic for one of them to study further. An approach possibly forgivable in a book of the 1920s but not one of today, and trust me I am no libertarian or moralist. Hopefully others get something out of it.
February 5, 2023
This book first interested me because it had been awhile since I had read any philosophy or non-fiction in general, so I figured a book *about* philosophers' lives would be a nice segue back into it. And I thought the premise sounded super exciting because I haven’t studied many women philosophers. My excitements were partly fulfilled in my reading of Metaphysical Animals.
My primary charge against this book is that it simply wasn’t very enjoyable to read. I found myself bored at times while I other chapters were more engaging. It is riddled with facts and figures that are very loosely attached to the lives of the four women at the center, but largely detached from what I took to be the point of the book - to highlight how these women influenced moral philosophy and brought it "back to life." Many of the individuals and events mentioned seemed superfluous to include for the book’s purpose to the point of confusion, where names are mentioned once or twice making me feel they need not be mentioned at all because I have no idea if I need to keep up with them (spoiler: you don’t). Not only are random facts inserted into certain stories within the larger narrative (sometimes parenthetically, but more often just following a sentence containing a completely different point, and never as footnotes which would have likely made the whole thing more digestible), but the stories themselves jump around in time and space making it extraordinarily difficult to keep up with what is going on. Not to mention the various images which with some context or captions would have been a nice touch as the authors clearly wish to humanize these women in addition to outlining their philosophies. Unfortunately, the narrative being far from linear results in it being far from clear as well.
Adding to its fragmentary quality is the peculiar use of first names throughout the book. What actually brought this book to my attention was a review of it in Philosophy Now Magazine, where the reviewer criticized the authors’ use of first names for the women, but not for the men. While this is actually far from accurate, the alternative is not much better. It is true that the authors only refer to the women as Iris, Mary, Elizabeth, and Philippa, but they are inconsistent with the men and other women, at one point even referring to Rousseau as ‘Jean-Jacques’ weirdly enough. Wittgenstein is never referred to as ‘Ludwig’ unless in combination with his last name. A.J. Ayer is referred to as ‘Freddie Ayer,’ ‘A.J. Ayer,’ or simply ‘Freddie.’ And so on. I will make no attempt to critique this issue of naming from a feminist perspective and I can only assume the authors’ intention is to further humanize these women (although Ludwig’s personal life is discussed just as much as his philosophy as well…One could argue he is better known by his last name than his first so it is meant to be clear, but this is just as true for Murdoch, Midgley, Anscombe, and Foot, as well as *cough cough* Jean-Jacques??) I mainly note this because to me it added to the confusion I was already experiencing.
My 3/5 stars really just reflect my mixed feelings about the book as a whole. 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.
My primary charge against this book is that it simply wasn’t very enjoyable to read. I found myself bored at times while I other chapters were more engaging. It is riddled with facts and figures that are very loosely attached to the lives of the four women at the center, but largely detached from what I took to be the point of the book - to highlight how these women influenced moral philosophy and brought it "back to life." Many of the individuals and events mentioned seemed superfluous to include for the book’s purpose to the point of confusion, where names are mentioned once or twice making me feel they need not be mentioned at all because I have no idea if I need to keep up with them (spoiler: you don’t). Not only are random facts inserted into certain stories within the larger narrative (sometimes parenthetically, but more often just following a sentence containing a completely different point, and never as footnotes which would have likely made the whole thing more digestible), but the stories themselves jump around in time and space making it extraordinarily difficult to keep up with what is going on. Not to mention the various images which with some context or captions would have been a nice touch as the authors clearly wish to humanize these women in addition to outlining their philosophies. Unfortunately, the narrative being far from linear results in it being far from clear as well.
Adding to its fragmentary quality is the peculiar use of first names throughout the book. What actually brought this book to my attention was a review of it in Philosophy Now Magazine, where the reviewer criticized the authors’ use of first names for the women, but not for the men. While this is actually far from accurate, the alternative is not much better. It is true that the authors only refer to the women as Iris, Mary, Elizabeth, and Philippa, but they are inconsistent with the men and other women, at one point even referring to Rousseau as ‘Jean-Jacques’ weirdly enough. Wittgenstein is never referred to as ‘Ludwig’ unless in combination with his last name. A.J. Ayer is referred to as ‘Freddie Ayer,’ ‘A.J. Ayer,’ or simply ‘Freddie.’ And so on. I will make no attempt to critique this issue of naming from a feminist perspective and I can only assume the authors’ intention is to further humanize these women (although Ludwig’s personal life is discussed just as much as his philosophy as well…One could argue he is better known by his last name than his first so it is meant to be clear, but this is just as true for Murdoch, Midgley, Anscombe, and Foot, as well as *cough cough* Jean-Jacques??) I mainly note this because to me it added to the confusion I was already experiencing.
My 3/5 stars really just reflect my mixed feelings about the book as a whole. 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.
June 5, 2022
A truly detailed exploration of the lives of four of the women who broke philosophical ground at Oxford, and a close examination of their thoughts about philosophy, religion and politics. This kind of book is often riddled with speculation, but the authors interviewed Mary Midgley as a primary source, who was the only one still alive before this book was published. She sadly passed away in 2018.
The void that men left when they were sent off to the front made space for women in all fields, and British philosophy was transformed by this shift. Philosophy from a female perspective allowed for a genuine curiosity freed from the posturing and arrogance so many young men would bring into the classroom, and allowed the influence that their friendships, romances (and later on, experiences as mothers) had on them to shape their views. It's particularly interesting to juxtapose these to those of the solitary existences of the men, most often unmarried, who are overwhelmingly taught as the great philosophical thinkers. Le Guin puts forth a similar view on this subject in Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places.
If you'd like to expand your knowledge of Western philosophy beyond the male perspective, this book is a good start.
The void that men left when they were sent off to the front made space for women in all fields, and British philosophy was transformed by this shift. Philosophy from a female perspective allowed for a genuine curiosity freed from the posturing and arrogance so many young men would bring into the classroom, and allowed the influence that their friendships, romances (and later on, experiences as mothers) had on them to shape their views. It's particularly interesting to juxtapose these to those of the solitary existences of the men, most often unmarried, who are overwhelmingly taught as the great philosophical thinkers. Le Guin puts forth a similar view on this subject in Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places.
If you'd like to expand your knowledge of Western philosophy beyond the male perspective, this book is a good start.
February 25, 2024
Book 2/12 of my surprise book a month (January's)
Not something I would have picked up myself, but I did enjoy it. Bits of it were a bit too high brow for me, a not atypical sentence was: 'no more would the esoteric organicism of the Idealists be used to limit individuality by their insistence that each person must subsume themself within the whole'. My sixth form Philosophy helped a bit but I did still struggle in areas and had to skim a little rather than properly understand it
I enjoyed the biographical aspect (despite the fair amount of conjecture) - the dynamics of Oxford around the second world war and the feelings towards women were interesting. Gave a very in depth view/sense of the time
Not something I would have picked up myself, but I did enjoy it. Bits of it were a bit too high brow for me, a not atypical sentence was: 'no more would the esoteric organicism of the Idealists be used to limit individuality by their insistence that each person must subsume themself within the whole'. My sixth form Philosophy helped a bit but I did still struggle in areas and had to skim a little rather than properly understand it
I enjoyed the biographical aspect (despite the fair amount of conjecture) - the dynamics of Oxford around the second world war and the feelings towards women were interesting. Gave a very in depth view/sense of the time
October 29, 2023
Fun. But the basic dichotomy is false. Anscombe and Foot were part of the linguistic turn in analytic philosophy. They opposed emotivism, but so did almost all the men.
July 29, 2025
This book is doing a lot. It's got women's history, intellectual history, history of Universities, and of course the biographies of the protagonists all baked into one book. And still it works. The feminist lens on the time period really adds something. Like the stories about how to deal with groping professors, or the resistance of Oxford to employ too many women, lest they ruin the manly atmosphere.
But the main focus of the book isn't on the struggles of being a woman, that's just a backdrop. It's on the lives and achievements of the book's protagonists and their struggle to reintegrate morality into analytic philosophy after the (male) philosophers of the early 20th century had methodically stripped morality away. Their combined work made them a tight-knit team that challenged both the philosophical establishment and made waves in the wider British society and beyond. The book's ability to capture the zeitgeist and feel of Britain during and after the war is very impressive.
A lot of people have compared this book to Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Cafe, and in many ways they are very similar. My one gripe with this book might be that it doesn't teach me very much about the mature philosophies of the protagonists, something I recall Bakewell being pretty good at doing. But that's not the main goal of this book, the book is a biography about 4 women and of Oxford and London during and after the second world war. And as far as a historical biography goes, it's a great achievement.
But the main focus of the book isn't on the struggles of being a woman, that's just a backdrop. It's on the lives and achievements of the book's protagonists and their struggle to reintegrate morality into analytic philosophy after the (male) philosophers of the early 20th century had methodically stripped morality away. Their combined work made them a tight-knit team that challenged both the philosophical establishment and made waves in the wider British society and beyond. The book's ability to capture the zeitgeist and feel of Britain during and after the war is very impressive.
A lot of people have compared this book to Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Cafe, and in many ways they are very similar. My one gripe with this book might be that it doesn't teach me very much about the mature philosophies of the protagonists, something I recall Bakewell being pretty good at doing. But that's not the main goal of this book, the book is a biography about 4 women and of Oxford and London during and after the second world war. And as far as a historical biography goes, it's a great achievement.
March 9, 2024
Holy heck, this shit slaps. My bias of being a driller that loves feminist history aside, this account of 4 philosophy girl bosses in action (alongside bare that history has omitted) is a huge W. This book is not just about the varying positions in metaphysics at Oxford over the course of a decade, it’s a story about struggle, a search for human connection, and shaping a better future for women drillers. No cap, any book that shows women dunking on men is getting a 5*.
If you’re a driller who dabbles in philosophy be prepared to find out Berlin was a mad misogynist, J.L. Austin defo could be found pulling up to your school in a Vauxhall Corsa when he wasn’t creating a men’s club in philosophy, and A.J. Ayer fumbled the bag with his claimed a Fortnite Victory Royale over metaphysics (womp womp).
If you’re a driller who dabbles in philosophy be prepared to find out Berlin was a mad misogynist, J.L. Austin defo could be found pulling up to your school in a Vauxhall Corsa when he wasn’t creating a men’s club in philosophy, and A.J. Ayer fumbled the bag with his claimed a Fortnite Victory Royale over metaphysics (womp womp).
Want to read
October 9, 2022A group biography of four women of which one is Iris Murdoch. The other three are Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe.
What I am REALLY looking for is a biography of just Iris Murdoch. Group biographies tend to not give adequate depth. I also need it to be available as an audiobook. Please inform ne if you can recommend one.
What I am REALLY looking for is a biography of just Iris Murdoch. Group biographies tend to not give adequate depth. I also need it to be available as an audiobook. Please inform ne if you can recommend one.
October 16, 2024
3.5/5 An enjoyable if superficial romp through 40s and 50s Oxbridge philosophy. Somewhat odd in requiring more than passing familiarity with the academic dramatis personae without pursuing in any depth their disagreements and central concerns. I am yet to read “The Women Are Up to Something,” which covers the same protagonists, but will be interested to see how they compare.
I was also annoyed by the misrepresentation of Sartre’s philosophy. One of the most memorable sentences in “Being and Nothingness” is “My acts cause values to spring up like partridges.” This passage was apparently missed by the authors in their description of existentialism and Iris Murdoch’s response to it.
I was also annoyed by the misrepresentation of Sartre’s philosophy. One of the most memorable sentences in “Being and Nothingness” is “My acts cause values to spring up like partridges.” This passage was apparently missed by the authors in their description of existentialism and Iris Murdoch’s response to it.
April 18, 2023
A fine account of 4 woman philosophers in the 1930s-1950s in Oxford who changed the course of moral philosophy in the 20th Century. It is remarkable that this book was published at the same time as another book on the very same topic: The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics. (See also my review of that.) The other book had more of a focussed narrative to it. This book had much more detail about the lives and philosophies of these women, so that it frayed the narrative a bit. To me they were both worth reading, but someone with less philosophical and biographical obsession would probably get more out of the other book. This one is deeply researched and overflows with tidbits from unpublished letters and journals--fascinating to me, maybe not to the general reader.
I don't know how it happened that these two books on exactly the same topic came out at exactly the same time. But it reminded me of another similar coincidence, when two biographies of Emil Zátopek came out simultaneously: Today We Die a Little!: The Inimitable Emil Zátopek, the Greatest Olympic Runner of All Time and Endurance: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Emil Zátopek (the latter which I read and reviewed).
I don't know how it happened that these two books on exactly the same topic came out at exactly the same time. But it reminded me of another similar coincidence, when two biographies of Emil Zátopek came out simultaneously: Today We Die a Little!: The Inimitable Emil Zátopek, the Greatest Olympic Runner of All Time and Endurance: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Emil Zátopek (the latter which I read and reviewed).
August 12, 2022
I wanted to like this book, but ultimately I think it could have been so much better. I find the authors’ use of first names deeply annoying. It’s overly familiar to our main characters, which annoys my feminist sensibilities, as well as some well known philosophers. I hated the references to Ayer as Freddie, but almost threw the book against the wall when they referred to Kant as Immanuel. Forget the rudeness; it’s unkind to readers to have to do mental calculations to figure out who they’re talking about. Ayer is Ayer and Kant is Kant.
They do a very good job of explaining some important differences between schools of philosophy in the early and mid twentieth century, but throughout the book the authors use the term “analytic” to refer to the anti-metaphysicians who our heroines are up against. What a surprise, then, to find them referred to as analytic philosophers in the afterword. How could that be? While I agree that the label applies, there is nothing in the main text to explain it.
There are tons of facts in this volume for those who are interested in who lived where when, but there is ultimately very little about the work these women created and the influences they had on those who followed. One does not learn how they “brought philosophy back to life,” as promised by the subtitle.
Overall, an enormous disappointment.
They do a very good job of explaining some important differences between schools of philosophy in the early and mid twentieth century, but throughout the book the authors use the term “analytic” to refer to the anti-metaphysicians who our heroines are up against. What a surprise, then, to find them referred to as analytic philosophers in the afterword. How could that be? While I agree that the label applies, there is nothing in the main text to explain it.
There are tons of facts in this volume for those who are interested in who lived where when, but there is ultimately very little about the work these women created and the influences they had on those who followed. One does not learn how they “brought philosophy back to life,” as promised by the subtitle.
Overall, an enormous disappointment.
March 24, 2022
First, I am definitely not a philosopher, and reading this reminded me of that fact repeatedly. This book, however, is more than a discussion of philosophy; it is also about four groundbreaking women who studied at Oxford at a time when women were not exactly welcomed there. The biographical parts of the book describe life for these women as students in the late 1930s and early 1940s as England was gripped by war, and hundreds of their male classmates left. Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, and Elizabeth Anscombe broke any number of glass ceilings at Oxford, both as students and later as instructors, and they spurred one another on to greater heights along the way. Thought-provoking.
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc!
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc!
April 28, 2023
Het kwartet heeft mijn hart gestolen
February 7, 2025
Loved this one (and the audio experience). I find these four women endlessly fascinating, and my next goal is to read some of their philosophical work for myself after admiring them through the lens of secondary sources.
December 27, 2024
"[...]the real is the beautiful, and as it turns out this means that it is what draws the soul because it is akin to it, because it makes the soul more really itself"
April 30, 2025
I loved reading this. It shows how four woman realized the importance of philosophy to life and ethics. It also reminded me of the importance of friendship in discussing ideas and being encouraged toward good solid thinking and moral acts. I want to read something from all four of them now, especially Iris and Elizabeth. And maybe even something from Wittgenstein….
June 26, 2022
When I was staring doubtfully at the cover of “Metaphysical animals” at my local bookshop, I had no idea how much I needed this book. It was a German translation. It was pretty expensive. Philosophy can be, well, tiring. I am so grateful that I was having an episode of consumption drift and carried it, together with five other books that I was squeezing between my folded arms and my chin, to the checkout.
Metaphysical animals is a mix between a detailed biography, an ode to maladjusted women, an introduction to philosophy, and a lot of cozy Oxford impressions, full of characters, gardens, cats, and living rooms that Hogwarts couldn’t compete with. It tells the story of the philosophical friendship between Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. 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. Against this background, the four friends try to develop a philosophy that is close to life.
In a proposal for a BBC show, that did not make it, Mary Midgley argues that currents like solipsism, individualism, and scepticism, that are characteristic for contemporary western philosophy, could never have been developed by people with a real life. The majority of prominent philosophers were single men that devoted their lives to philosophy, far away from children, gardens, stoves, friends, voluntary work, and poetry. This raises the obvious question of what a philosophy of real life could look like.
Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch offer, in very different ways, answers to this question. Mary Midgley argues that philosophy is as crucial to good life, as plumbers are to having a good sink. 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”. She also discovers that when moral values are subjective, we would accept everything as a moral value, which we obviously don’t. Iris Murdoch learns that she would draw the face of someone she had not recognized for a second differently before and after the moment of recognizing. Elizabeth Anscombe goes to the zoo with Wittgenstein and talks about a drawing of hares and a turned duckface. She understands that that expressions have a logical meaning, as well as a sensual meaning.
In a world in which we fetishize the lonesome male genius, both inside and outside of philosophy, and in which empiric work, hard numbers, and efficiency are dominating, it was an absolute relief to read about the dedication of four women to live their lives as good people and as thinking people. The next time I am attending a logic talk at a conference and a guy tries to convince me to buy bitcoins or to give me the feeling that every problem in this world can be reduced to a formula, I will think of Philippa Foot, who had an intuitive nose for things that were wrong, before even understanding her own arguments.
Metaphysical animals is a mix between a detailed biography, an ode to maladjusted women, an introduction to philosophy, and a lot of cozy Oxford impressions, full of characters, gardens, cats, and living rooms that Hogwarts couldn’t compete with. It tells the story of the philosophical friendship between Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. 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. Against this background, the four friends try to develop a philosophy that is close to life.
In a proposal for a BBC show, that did not make it, Mary Midgley argues that currents like solipsism, individualism, and scepticism, that are characteristic for contemporary western philosophy, could never have been developed by people with a real life. The majority of prominent philosophers were single men that devoted their lives to philosophy, far away from children, gardens, stoves, friends, voluntary work, and poetry. This raises the obvious question of what a philosophy of real life could look like.
Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch offer, in very different ways, answers to this question. Mary Midgley argues that philosophy is as crucial to good life, as plumbers are to having a good sink. 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”. She also discovers that when moral values are subjective, we would accept everything as a moral value, which we obviously don’t. Iris Murdoch learns that she would draw the face of someone she had not recognized for a second differently before and after the moment of recognizing. Elizabeth Anscombe goes to the zoo with Wittgenstein and talks about a drawing of hares and a turned duckface. She understands that that expressions have a logical meaning, as well as a sensual meaning.
In a world in which we fetishize the lonesome male genius, both inside and outside of philosophy, and in which empiric work, hard numbers, and efficiency are dominating, it was an absolute relief to read about the dedication of four women to live their lives as good people and as thinking people. The next time I am attending a logic talk at a conference and a guy tries to convince me to buy bitcoins or to give me the feeling that every problem in this world can be reduced to a formula, I will think of Philippa Foot, who had an intuitive nose for things that were wrong, before even understanding her own arguments.
July 19, 2023
The book begins with two short vignettes: one about Elizabeth Anscombe’s speech against the awarding of an honorary degree by oxford to Harry Truman. The other is Philippa foot, writing a very long letter, pleading that Somerville offer Elizabeth a job.
Mary and Iris spend time working on the campaign to elect Lindsey.
The authors spend some time discussing Susan Stebbings-should have been longer- and Freddie Ayer, and his soul-destroying positivism.
“Love can motivate us in a way that involves desire, but not self-interest.“ And describing the conversations, Elizabeth, Iris, Mary and Philippa had about Mary Glover‘s paper, “Obligation and value.”
The importance of Donald McKinnon to all of them. McKinnon argues that AJ Ayer as a vision of humans as efficient calculating machines. MacKinnon argues that human beings are metaphysical animals.
Elizabeth meets Wittgenstein. She is perplexed but she has religious faith which makes her serious.
The book focuses on the period from 1939 to 1951 which is but a decade in the lives of such extraordinarily long-lived women.
At times, the book motivated me to pull out the works of theirs I own and re-read them. And at times, it portrayed them as scatter-brained willful vagabonds, even Foot for a time, who really have no admirable qualities, certainly not any that one would want to emulate.
Mary and Iris spend time working on the campaign to elect Lindsey.
The authors spend some time discussing Susan Stebbings-should have been longer- and Freddie Ayer, and his soul-destroying positivism.
“Love can motivate us in a way that involves desire, but not self-interest.“ And describing the conversations, Elizabeth, Iris, Mary and Philippa had about Mary Glover‘s paper, “Obligation and value.”
The importance of Donald McKinnon to all of them. McKinnon argues that AJ Ayer as a vision of humans as efficient calculating machines. MacKinnon argues that human beings are metaphysical animals.
Elizabeth meets Wittgenstein. She is perplexed but she has religious faith which makes her serious.
The book focuses on the period from 1939 to 1951 which is but a decade in the lives of such extraordinarily long-lived women.
At times, the book motivated me to pull out the works of theirs I own and re-read them. And at times, it portrayed them as scatter-brained willful vagabonds, even Foot for a time, who really have no admirable qualities, certainly not any that one would want to emulate.
August 7, 2023
when i first began studying philosophy at a level i remember being utterly consumed by the trolley problem; it was my first introduction to philosophy as well as the first time i had heard a woman's name in that class as one to be studied. as i'm about to enter my third year of my philosophy ba i have admittedly heard a lot more contributions by women. this book is so important as it highlights that women made extremely important contributions to the discipline. i loved how vibrant this book was, you really get a feel for the lives of these women and all those who orbit around them in such a rich time period for philosophy. it's so enjoyable to read beyond their lives in academia and see them as the bright women that they were. it was enjoyable to read something that made them feel real. as an aside, this also helped describe exactly how i feel about living in cambridge from the amazing quote "i feel i will die slowly if i stay in cambridge,'...'i would rather take a chance of dying quickly.
April 12, 2023
Metaphysical Animals provides an interesting recounting of the lives and careers of four women philosophers of the mid-twentieth century. The occasion of World War II, with its concomitant dispersal of the usual, overwhelmingly male, student body at Oxford and Cambridge into active service, as well as the arrival of intellectual Continental refugees, and the gradually revealed horrors of the Nazi regime, provide a unique opening for the four remarkable and brilliant protagonists of this narrative.
This is a worthwhile and serious work about the influence of these four as they attempt to repair and rescue philosophy from the often dismissive and rarified place into which the discipline had devolved by the time the war broke out. It's a fairly dense text - not a particularly easy read - but then it is, after all, philosophy. I recommend, with the caveat that it won't be everyone's cup of tea.
This is a worthwhile and serious work about the influence of these four as they attempt to repair and rescue philosophy from the often dismissive and rarified place into which the discipline had devolved by the time the war broke out. It's a fairly dense text - not a particularly easy read - but then it is, after all, philosophy. I recommend, with the caveat that it won't be everyone's cup of tea.
December 5, 2023
There is much to discover, much to enjoy, and much to ponder in this book. But, to get to these very worthwhile pearls, one must endure a tedious amount of trivial detail. It is a shame that the editors did not press the authors to drop much of this excess, and in so doing allow a clearer picture of the book’s overall arch and argument to emerge. Had the editors done so then the second major criticism of this book - that its primary arguments appear in the blurb and in introductory passages, and are then lost in the body of the book - may well have been resolved through some easier refinement and rearranging of what is otherwise great material and insight.
An enjoyable and worthwhile read, but just.
An enjoyable and worthwhile read, but just.
April 29, 2024
When I started reading, I commented this here:
"Both this and The metaphysical Club have done an incredible job in making me really dislike these people", but I think I was being too fast to judge. Now, my general impression of these characters is that they are just ordinary people, and that is what I have come to admire the most about this book: how it makes clear that excellent philosophy is done by ordinary people like you and me: people with money problems, relationship issues, etc. The stories the book tells sound so familiar to me, because they could be taking about any group of five female friends that studied with me or that have become my colleagues at the philosophy department.
"Both this and The metaphysical Club have done an incredible job in making me really dislike these people", but I think I was being too fast to judge. Now, my general impression of these characters is that they are just ordinary people, and that is what I have come to admire the most about this book: how it makes clear that excellent philosophy is done by ordinary people like you and me: people with money problems, relationship issues, etc. The stories the book tells sound so familiar to me, because they could be taking about any group of five female friends that studied with me or that have become my colleagues at the philosophy department.
November 13, 2022
I wanted to like this after loving "The Women Are UP to Something" as it was the same cast of characters. This seemed very busy and chatty and throwing opinions at you right away. Maybe I shouldn't have read two similar books back to back. But I couldn't get through more than 20 pages, started skimming, looking for something interesting and then just gave up.
March 30, 2023
I wrote about this fabulous book for the TLS: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/me...
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