Browse our collection of first hand source material on the members of our quartet.
Mary Midgley’s “The Concept of Beastliness: Philosophy, Ethics and Animal Behaviour” has been translated into Japanese for the Tokyo leg of our project, Notes from a Biscuit Tin. Transalted by Shoko Kinoshita,...
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Midgley wrote this essay in the mid-1950s for BBC radio. In her memoir The Owl of Minerva, she recalls:
“I wrote it because I had suddenly been struck by the fact that nearly all the famous philosophers whose lives we know about were lifelong bachelors…
Read MoreIn May 1983, Philippa Foot was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was sent a rather grand certificate informing her of the honor. As you may notice, the certificate is addressed:...
Read Moreby Mary Midgley Mary Midgley Considers How What Is Called Philosophy Has Changed Since She And Her Friends First Plunged Into It Changes In World-Pictures. When we four people started studying Philosophy at Oxford in the early...
Read MoreIris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 and studied Classics at Sommerville College, Oxford (1937-42). During the war, she worked for the treasury in London and lived with Philippa Food. Afterwards she went to Austria for UNRRA,...
Read MorePhilippa Foot (née Bosanquet) was born in 1920 and studied PPE at Sommerville College, Oxford (1937-42). During the war (1942-7) she worked as an economist in London, living with Iris Murdoch. She returned to Somerville College...
Read MoreMary Midgley (née Scrutton) was born in 1919 and studied Classics at Somerville College, Oxford (1937-42). During the war she worked in the Civil Service before returning to Oxford to begin a PhD with Gilbert Murray on Plotinus....
Read MoreG. E. M. Anscombe was born in 1919 and studied Classics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford (1936-41). After graduating, Anscombe held a studentship at Newnham College, Cambridge (1942-5), before returning to Oxford for a research...
Read MoreIn May 1983, Philippa Foot was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was sent a rather grand certificate (click to enlarge) informing her of the honor: As you may notice, the certificate is...
Read MoreLast week Liza, Clare and I went along with Lindsay (our film-crew!), to interview Mary Warnock at her London home. We’ll be posting some sound-extracts from the interview here in the coming weeks (along with some from our...
Read MoreClare, Luna, and I went along to interview Mary Midgley today at her home in Newcastle. We spent an incredible 90 minutes learning about life in Oxford during the 1930s and 40s, and hearing her thoughts on the contemporary lot...
Read MoreMary Midgley has generously offered us her time on Monday, so we’re off to interview her about the Golden Age of female philosophy! We’ve got our own list of questions, but if there’s anything you think we...
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