Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a vivid portrait of the endeavours and achievements of these four remarkable women. I don't know how it happened that these two books on exactly the same topic came out at exactly the same time. If things had gone to plan, Mary would have arrived at Somerville fresh from Vienna, her German fluent, her conversation studded with casual references to Viennese culture and art.

A vivid picture of the times, and of the formative experiences of the four women who would go on to become some of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century.As a reader and teacher of contemporary British literature in the latter 20th century, I’d of course read several novels by Iris Murdoch (although she’d never been one of my favourites) and knew that she’d been a philosophy don at St. Having studied philosophy at masters level at University, it seems incredible to me that the women had such little prominence in for example, the ethics syllabus which was dominated by the likes of Ayer and Hare. There were forty-three Somerville entrants that year and, Mrs Z’s astonishment notwithstanding, Iris and Mary were the only two up to read Honour Moderations and Literae Humaniores.

These four philosophers might not appear on standard syllabi, but this detailed chronicle makes a persuasive case that they should. If you'd like to expand your knowledge of Western philosophy beyond the male perspective, this book is a good start. A fascinating account of key moments in the lives of four women who came together through their shared love of philosophy and dedication to thought. I wish I had read this text before my travels so I'd had a better idea of the different colleges and noteworthy sights! As with any good history, there is something eerily prescient in Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman’s account of a university educated cultural elite for whom moral discourse had declined to the point of linguistic one-upmanship—and the subsequent need to reconnect with a more robust notion of virtue, human flourishing, and what makes for a good life.I appreciated that women other than our four friends were given space here, from wives of lecturers to other female philosophers who paved the way, but were largely written out of philosophical history…by the men. Truly magnificent and of utmost importance for anyone who is interested in the British counter-tradition that aimed to revive moral philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century after the massive influence of logical positivism on the discipline. It fell to four women philosophers, each born in the years between 1918 and 1920, to object to this sad state of affairs. Younger girls remembered Iris as a good hockey player and a well-liked head prefect who everyone knew ‘was very clever’. From the point of view of a person from India, a country that was colonised by the British, it all seems quite self - indulgent.

We shall need to think about HOW best to think about these new and difficult topics-how to imagine them, how to visualise them, how to fit them into a convincing world picture. In a world that is in danger of losing perspective on the importance of philosophy, the closing paragraphs of the book, a quotation from Midgley’s, ‘What is Philosophy. Many of the young men who found themselves, as Mary did, at the gates of Oxford colleges and on the threshold of adulthood, did not expect to finish their degrees. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman tie the early lives of Anscombe, Foot, Murdoch and Midgley into the development of philosophy in mid-20th century England.The decor of this story is WOII Oxford, emptied of men, but full of academic and non-academic refugees, fear, insecurity and letters about the death of brothers, friends and lovers. Foot’s autobiography, I found out that Iris and Philippa had been roommates in wartime and that he had an affair with Iris till she dumped him for an economist (who ended up advising Harold Wilson), and he married Philippa on the rebound. Badminton’s principal, Miss Beatrice May Baker (alias BMB), was a progressive woman with an international outlook – pupils between the wars were told: ‘You must not expect jam for tea while German children are starving’.

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. Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman did a wonderful job of integrating the women's journal entries and historical events to their philosophical growth. At times it seemed like the use of their first name keyed my brain to think all first names (not lasts) were important, so I found myself rereading names often. The authors spend some time discussing Susan Stebbings-should have been longer- and Freddie Ayer, and his soul-destroying positivism. It is a little bizarre that this book was published by the same publisher (Oxford Uni Press) who had published a book on the same four women philosophers shortly before this, in the same year.Elizabeth Anscombe goes to the zoo with Wittgenstein and talks about a drawing of hares and a turned duckface. Together, these young women, all friends, developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations. A circle that endured for years, sometimes separated and fragmented, but always a fertile source for ideas and a form of support. In Metaphysical Animals, a pioneering group biography, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a compelling alternative.