| Description |
xv, 398 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-371) and index. |
| Contents |
Prologue: Mr Truman's degree, Oxford, May 1956 -- On probation, Oxford, October 1938-September 1939 -- Learning in wartime, Oxford, September 1939-June 1942 -- Disorder and hardship, Cambridge & London, June 1942-August 1945 -- Park Town, Oxford, Brussels, Graz, Cambridge & Chiswick, September 1945-August 1947 -- A joint 'No!', Oxford & Cambridge, October 1947-July 1948 -- Back to life, Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin & Vienna, October 1948-January 1951 -- Metaphysical animals, Newcastle & Oxford, May 1950-February 1955 -- Epilogue: Mr Truman's degree, again, Oxford, May 1956 -- Afterwards. |
| Summary |
"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 fighting World War II. The history of European philosophy is usually constructed from the work of men. In Metaphysical Animals, a pioneering group biography, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a compelling alternative. In the mid-twentieth century Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch were philosophy students at Oxford when most male undergraduates and many tutors were conscripted away to fight in the Second World War. Together, these young women, all friends, developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations. Neither the great Enlightenment thinkers of the past, the logical innovators of the early twentieth century, or the new Existentialist philosophy trickling across the Channel, could make sense of this new human reality of limitless depravity and destructive power, the women felt. Their answer was to bring philosophy back to life. We are metaphysical animals, they realized, creatures that can question their very being. Who am I? What is freedom? What is human goodness? The answers we give, they believed, shape what we will become"-- Amazon. |
| Subject |
Murdoch, Iris -- Friends and associates.
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Foot, Philippa -- Friends and associates.
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Anscombe, G. E. M. (Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret) -- Friends and associates.
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Midgley, Mary, 1919-2018 -- Friends and associates.
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Women philosophers -- England -- Biography.
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| Genre |
Biographies.
|
| Added Author |
Wiseman, Rachael, author.
|
| ISBN |
9780385545709 (hc.) |
|
0385545703 (hc.) |
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