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Metaphysical Animals

By: Clare Mac Cumhaill, Rachael Wiseman
Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
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Publisher's Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

In philosophy, one must start from scratch - and it takes a very long time to reach scratch.

Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe were philosophy students at Oxford during the Second World War when most male undergraduates (and many tutors) were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors, the four friends developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations.

When images of the concentration camps emerged, Foot wrote: 'We had thought something like this could not happen'. And when the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima, Anscombe saw a terrifying new possibility: by signing his name at the foot of an order, US President Harry Truman had been able to act on so vast a scale as to end the war by killing hundreds of thousands. How, they asked, do we find our way through the darkness of what we have created? Not even the great thinkers of the past or the logical innovators and Existentialists of the early 20th century could make sense of this new human reality. So, in search of an answer, the four friends set out to bring philosophy back to life.

What is freedom? What is real? What is human goodness? As creatures who use language - as human animals - it is in our nature to ask these questions. We are metaphysical animals. And the answers we give shape what we will become.

Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a vivid blend of philosophy and recovered history - bringing back the women who shared ideas, as well as sofas, shoes and even lovers. Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman show how from the disorder and despair of the war, four brilliant friends brought philosophy back to life and created a way of ethical thinking that is there for us today.

©2022 Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (P)2022 Penguin Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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Well worth the effort

Not an easy 'read'. The idea for the book is really good - it got me just on reading the blurb. But it's not easy to hold it together - perhaps harder since it's an audiobook. You can't go back so easily. It took me most of the book to build the characters in my own mind; mainly because it was so discursive - a bit here, a bit there. And the drops of philosophy here and there were too brief, and you rarely got a chance to consider the propositions. Also, a lot of existential stuff - I guess I should have known that. Not my style of philosophy. Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it, because I really didn't know much about these women. Now I appreciate more and more that the way to the truth is not through the mind alone. THE BIG PLUS FOR THE BOOK - THE NARRATOR. By far the best narrator I've ever heard, and when I googled her name, it turns out she teaches accents to actors etc. She would make any book worth 'reading'.

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