Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman

#2181 of 3,809 books · #784 in Biography & Memoir

Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography (2022).

Metaphysical Animals won the HWA Non-Fiction Crown, was an Irish Times Book of the Year, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Elizabeth Anscombe: defiantly brilliant, chain-smoking, trouser-wearing Catholic and (eventual) mother of seven. Philippa Foot: pathalogically discreet, quietly rebellious granddaughter of a US president. Mary Midgley: witty scholar and careful observer of humans and animals alike. Iris Murdoch: aspiring novelist and Francophile with the power to seduce (almost) anyone. Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a vivid portrait of the endeavours and achievements of these four remarkable women. As undergraduates at Oxford during the Second World War, they shared ideas (as well as shoes, sofas and lovers). From the disorder and despair of war, they went on to breathe new life into philosophy, creating a radically fresh way of thinking about freedom, reality and human goodness that is there for us today.