Clare Mac Cumhaill

Andra världskriget rasar, och på filosofiska institutionen i Oxford har många av de manliga studenterna och lärarna försvunnit. Fram träder då fyra kvinnliga forskare som delar inte bara skor, soffor och älskare utan framför allt idéer. Tillsammans förnyar de det filosofiska tänkandet och tar debatten med berömdheterna. Möt deras äventyrliga liv och deras inspirerande tankar om frihet, verklighet och godhet i denna flerfaldigt prisnominerade kollektivbiografi – naturligtvis skriven av två filosofer och vänner.”Att läsa den här boken är en påminnelse om att ens inre liv kan vara lika äventyrligt och händelserik som våra vänskapsrelationer” Guardian ”Oemotståndlig och tankeväckande” London Review of Books

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE NEW YORKER - 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. Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a lively portrait of women who shared ideas, but also apartments, clothes and even lovers. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman show how from the disorder and despair of the war, four brilliant friends created a way of ethical thinking that is there for us today.

WINNER OF THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWNAN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARA NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOKA FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDElizabeth 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.'Evocative and sparkling' New York Times'A triumph' Mail on Sunday