The Philosopher Queens by Rebecca Buxton

Author:Rebecca Buxton [Whiting, Rebecca Buxton and Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783528295
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2020-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

Mary Midgley

1919–2018

Ellie Robson

Mary Midgley was a vibrant moral philosopher whose inexhaustible imagination and persistent questioning of the twentieth-century analytic philosophical paradigm spanned her long life. But despite her refreshingly accessible style of writing and engagement with real-world problems, Midgley’s broader philosophical vision has been largely unappreciated. Certain aspects of her work are widely known – such as her engagement with animal ethics and criticism of Richard Dawkins – but the breadth of Midgley’s philosophy stretches far beyond these topics.

Unlike many other analytic moral philosophers who often focus on abstract puzzles or defend specific philosophical doctrines, Midgley was more concerned with broadening and augmenting our vision of things. Her books brim with rich ideas about human moral life, particularly examining human beings, our nature, and our place within the world. Yet once you read Midgley’s books you will notice similar themes and messages – in this sense, Midgley’s philosophy may be described as both holistic and systematic. Engaging in debates of modern science, evolution, environmental ethics and feminism, her philosophy displays a constant and pragmatic concern for the next ‘task at hand’. She presents a positive and problem-solving approach to the everyday anxieties we face in our modern world.

Midgley wasn’t always sure about her philosophical direction. Her academic career took a somewhat unusual shape. Whereas most of her contemporaries published a steady stream of books and articles, Midgley focused on being a teacher, scholar and mother, only writing academic philosophy towards the end of her professional career. This unlikelier path may have slowed the uptake of Midgley’s philosophy into the philosophical literature but, as Midgley tells us in her ever-sensible tone, she was ‘jolly glad’ she waited until her fifties to publish: ‘I didn’t know what I thought before then!’

Midgley’s memoir, The Owl of Minerva (2005), presents a thoughtful and light-hearted portrayal of her early life. Born in London in 1919, Mary was the daughter of politically minded parents, Lesley and Tom Scrutton. Her father later became a chaplain at King’s College, Cambridge. In 1924 the Scruttons moved to Greenford, Middlesex, where Mary enjoyed a typically middle-class upbringing. She describes her nature-loving childhood, recalling timeless outdoor adventures with her brother, Hugh. Aged twelve, she began attending Downe House, a girls’ boarding school near Newbury. Immersed in poetry, Latin and drama, she recalls reading Plato at sixteen and thinking it was ‘tremendous stuff’.

In 1938, Midgley began reading Mods and Greats at Somerville College, Oxford. Among the minority of women philosophy students, she describes entering Oxford at a time when philosophy was dominated by clever young men. Philosophy, to these men, was a competition to win arguments in fractious displays of intelligence – the aim was not advancing understanding but avoiding appearing weak. A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic had appeared only two years earlier and was highly influential. In it, Ayer argues for a trenchant separation of fact and value. But this left ethical questions within an autonomous sphere, devoid of any factual content. It also reduced the work of the moral philosopher to little more than linguistic analysis.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.