Conference

Wartime Quartet:
Significance, Legacy, Spirit

7th-9th June 2023

St Aidan’s College, University of Durham, UK

Keynote Lectures also online. Details here.

Iris Murdoch, Phillipa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Midgley are four philosophers who studied together at Oxford University during WWII. They went on to become some of the most significant moral philosophers of the 20th Century. The Women in Parenthesis research project has been conducting research into the lives and thought of these four women since 2015 and has recently published a philosophical biography of the quartet, Metaphysical Animals (Chatto: 2022).

In this conference, we bring together scholars working on all areas of the quartet’s philosophy, lives, and influence. By looking at these thinkers in connection with one another, we will illuminate the ways that their friendships, conversations, and historical context contributed to their philosophical and ethical outlooks. This approach takes seriously the quartet’s shared belief that philosophy is not just about abstract problems, but something that can help us to navigate real practical, moral, and social problems.

Thanks to AHRC, BSHP, St Aidan’s College, Durham University, and University of Liverpool for their generous support. 

Programme

The conference will be held at the St Aidan’s College, University of Durham, 7th-9th June 2023. It includes a mix of panel discussions, poster presentations, a visit to the Midgley Archive and a Conference Dinner.

Keynote speakers