Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

I was looking for the musings of women on philosophy and came across this book.It is full of interesting anecdotes about the Oxford philosophers.From the point of view of Westerners, in a world coming to terms with the Second World War, it may offer insights. From the point of view of a person from India, a country that was colonised by the British, it all seems quite self - indulgent. The privations that the protagonists undergo seems a piffle compared to the everyday life of comparable people in India. I find the near adulation of Wittgenstein inexplicable. In the light of present knowledge about the brain, human behaviour, and the development of societies, Wittgenstein's ruminations seem somewhat peurile. It appears that the authors of the present work do not read the progress in other disciplines. It is also extremely disappointing, that there are no insights into how women think. Ultimately all four women in the book are defined by their relationships with men. That is very sad.

For those interested in the history of philosophy most of this book is as interesting and engaging as anything on the market. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman tie the early lives of Anscombe, Foot, Murdoch and Midgley into the development of philosophy in mid-20th century England. This is especially true of the enduring influence of Wittgenstein on them. I recently read Ray Monk’s biography of Wittgenstein but this book throws a light on Wittgenstein’s intellectual relationship with the four women that is unknown to most of the public including most philosophers. This is most true of Elizabeth Anscombe whose translation of Philosophical Investigations helped to make this book a classic of 20th century philosophy. All four developed original and lasting contributions to philosophy and this book is superb at showing the intellectual development of each of them.Besides the specific philosophical issues Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman do an excellent job of showing the personal interrelationship of the four friends. The book gives the reader fresh insight into the life of a woman in the institutional sexism of major British universities in the mid-20th century. It shows how the four women supported, nourished, and often critiqued each other. Despite going in different directions as they got older, their influence on each other was foundational for their future careers. I have never read a book like this – the story of four individuals, each creative and original in her own way, and how their personal and intellectual lives intertwined. The book is a unique and compelling document for those who know only the slim outlines of these women’s lives and works.I did not agree with every aspect of the book. 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. Also, after the first fifty pages or so I wondered how deeply this book about four philosophers could go without skimming the surface. But these turned into minor issues. The vast bulk of this book is an enlightening and (for a philosopher) page-turning story of four remarkable women and how they interacted with each other and the philosophical environment in which they lived. I recommend it in the highest degree.

There appears to be a bit of an industry growing up around the four philosophers whose works and lives are contained in this book. First there was the episode of Netflix's The Good Place which addressed Philippa Foot's Trolley Problem, then there was Benjamin Lipscomb's excellent 'The Women are up to Something", but now we have the best of the lot, Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman's (M&W) 'Metaphysical Animals'.What M&W have done is to note and examine what appears to be a unique development in philosophy - the development of a philosophical movement which is neither the product of a single mind (as in the case of say, Kant or Plato) nor the outpourings of a "school" - say the Frankfurt School or medieval scholasticism, but rather more the evolutionary development of a reaction against the implausible aridity and emptiness of Ayer's version of logical positivism or the bleak meaningless of the ethics of Hare.Instead M&W have worked through the mutually supporting development of a kind of neo-Aristotelian liberal (in the proper, not the American sense) view of life and taken into consideration the best of Hume's insight - that we forget philosophy as soon as we leave the room - and Kant's - that we can only know and experience through the set of equipment we have as humans.I found this book very enlightening indeed. 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. Midgley, famously, learned much of the continuity of humanity and the natural world from dealing with her sons.In my view, the productions of these philosophers are the most significant of the late 20th century, and certainly the most important since Wittgenstein. Foot's Trolley Problem encapsulates the genuine questions surrounding AI (as opposed to the silly ones, like the paper clip issue), while Midgley tackles the possibly even more significant question of our place in, and relation to nature, a sort of wonderful synthesis of ontology with ethics..The literary aspect of this book should not be overlooked either. It is extremely readable even when dealing with difficult and (to the outsider) dry aspects of philosophy - Wittgenstein on rule-following can be very tough in the wrong hands - and JL Austin and Gilbert Ryle don't generate too many laughs. But M&W have peppered the text with some very amusing (and helpful) gems such as the Professor of Social and Theoretical Pedagogy at war with some bees (who reciprocated), and some of Anscombe's famous clothing incidents - I'm still in the dark as to whether she was a Fearless Feminist Fighting For Freedom From Frocks or just bonkers.In summary, an excellent addition to the interpretation of a unique group of philosophers.

Feminist philosophy has burgeoned in recent decades and includes a monumental contribution to ethical-moral thought that draws from ancient philosophy. The subtitle, How four women brought philosophy back to life, splendidly identifies the tale. Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman brilliantly weave together richly detailed accounts of the lives and relationships of Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. In turn, the authors interweave these lives with the modern history of philosophy and their contributions to it. One of their male philosophical foes, Richard Hare, provided a pithy summary of a main theme of contemporary feminist moral philosophy: "[T]hey all, when I am the target, accuse me of paying too much attention to general principles and too little to the peculiarities of individual cases" (p. 283). In the 1970s and 80s, Carol Gilligan discovered that this difference is the crux of what distinguished the hitherto neglected ways of thinking of girls and women from those of their male counterparts who had been viewed as models of mature moral thought.At Oxford during the war and post-war years, the women who broke into teaching were, ironically, teaching philosophy written by men. Now feminist philosophers are teaching what other women have been writing. There are men who played important supporting roles in the development and promotion of these four women's thinking, and one hero stands out: A bonus in this book is a remarkable elucidation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's thinking about language in relation to the texture of human social life. What if philosophy concerned itself with what matters most? It does, as these four women's lives and the authors who embraced them attest.

This is a hugely enjoyable and thought provoking book. There are reviews on this site that offer criticisms that the book does not address various profound questions of metaphysics in suitable depth. Having recently finished reading the book, I think such a criticism is missing the point. What is central here is the evidence that Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch and Mary Midgley are four of the most important philosophers of the 20 century and arguably even more important in the 21st. Having studied philosophy at masters level at University, it seems incredible to me that the women had such little prominence in for example, the ethics syllabus which was dominated by the likes of Ayer and Hare.But this book brings the significance of the womens’ work to life in the context in which their thinking developed in their young adulthood especially intertwining in Oxford and Cambridge.The writing is very readable containing a beautifully light and humorous air to it and the authors have a great facility to explain complex philosophical ideas in a most accessible way.In a world that is in danger of losing perspective on the importance of philosophy, the closing paragraphs of the book, a quotation from Midgley’s, ‘What is Philosophy. For?’, is, as the authors write, a warning and an imperative .‘What actually happens to us will surely still be determined by human choices. Not even the most admirable of machines can make better choices than the people who are supposed to be programming them. So we had surely better rely here on using our own Minds rather than wait for Matter to do the job.And if this is right, I suspect that …philosophical meaning will now become more important. We shall need to think about HOW best to think about these new and difficult topics-how to imagine them, how to visualise them, how to fit them into a convincing world picture. And if we don’t do that for ourselves, it’s hard to see who will do it for us’.This is a wonderful book that enriches and inspires.

Reading "Metaphysical Animals". The book deserves a great deal of praise. In the preface the authors layout their belief that we have lost our way from ideals and guiding concepts ("metaphysics") and that the a return to these is needed.The book offers a wonderful peak into the lives of four women at Oxford during the second world war and after. It makes for a good story also invites you to think and experience some of these same things for yourself.They are clever(brilliant) women. Learning classic philosophy by rubbing shoulders with clever(brilliant) teachers and tutors- Witgenstein, C.S. Lewis, a host of brilliant German that fled Europe from fascism.Highly recommend.