Description
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWN
AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK
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.
'Evocative and sparkling' New York Times
'A triumph' Mail on Sunday
Trade ReviewExcellent -- Bonnie Garmus * Guardian *
Lively ... This
fascinating work of historico-logico-feminism shows... how women fought their way on to the world stage of philosophy and turned its spotlight away from an analytical desert on to what was really important - moral clarity, wisdom and truth -- John Walsh * Sunday Times *
The narrative is of four
brilliant women finding their voices, opposing received wisdom, and developing an alternative picture of human beings and their place in the world...
To read this story is to be reminded...that the life of the mind can be as intense and eventful as friendship itself -- Anil Gomes * Guardian *
Joyful... These four are enlivening companions... four
glorious heroines, confident and curious, focused on the world and not on themselves * Spectator *
Irresistible... Highly evocative... Bring[s] to life an important episode in intellectual history, and [has] made me again grateful that I was for a time a contemporary of these
unforgettable women -- Thomas Nagel * London Review of Books *
