Metaphysical Animals Audiobook By Clare Mac Cumhaill, Rachae Wiseman cover art

Metaphysical Animals

How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Metaphysical Animals

By: Clare Mac Cumhaill, Rachae Wiseman
Narrated by: Alex Dunmore
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEARA vibrant portrait of four college friends—Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Mary Midgley—who formed a new philosophical tradition while Oxford's men were away fighting World War II.

The history of European philosophy is usually constructed from the work of men. In Metaphysical Animals, a pioneering group biography, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a compelling alternative. In the mid-twentieth century Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch were philosophy students at Oxford when most male undergraduates and many tutors were conscripted away to fight in the Second World War. Together, these young women, all friends, developed a philosophy that could respond to the war’s darkest revelations.

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. Their answer was to bring philosophy back to life. We are metaphysical animals, they realized, creatures that can question their very being. Who am I? What is freedom? What is human goodness? The answers we give, they believed, shape what we will become.

Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a lively portrait of women who shared ideas, but also apartments, clothes, and even lovers. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman show how from the disorder and despair of the war, four brilliant friends created a way of ethical thinking that is there for us today.

©2022 Clare Mac Cumhaill (P)2022 Random House Audio
Literary History & Criticism Philosophy Women Metaphysical War Metaphysical Animal
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup

Critic reviews

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker

"Absorbing. . . each of this book’s subjects produced work that, in seeking to reconnect 'human life, action and perception' with morality, remains vitally relevant."The New Yorker

"Meticulously researched, Metaphysical Animals paints a vivid portrait of the friendship between four remarkable female philosophers."The Wall Street Journal

Metaphysical Animals makes impressively light-footed work of bringing philosophy in. The reader feels as if in the midst of a lively discussion over crumpets at a Lyons tearoom . . . The payoff is four glorious heroines, confident and curious, focused on the world and not themselves.”The Spectator (U.K.)

All stars
Most relevant  
The revival of Metaphysics by these four women philosophers is a service to post war philosophy. A service that lives on today. They are also pioneers for equal opportunity. The Audible performance was one of the best I have heard. The content was a necessary balance between their humanity and their work. Excellent.

Important

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Excellent in every respect: cogently argued, beautifully read, the French pronounced perfectly. Readers interested in philosophy will thoroughly enjoy getting to know these four greats: Anscombe, Foot, Midgely, and Murdoch. Highly recommended! ppc

Four Greats

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

As a woman grad student facing bias, harassment, and sexual assault the example of these women was a source of strength and perseverance. Thank you to the authors. Also an excellent performance.

Excellent. Long awaited.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

A deft weaving of the philosophers’ lives and times and the development of their thinking. A celebration of the fruits of particularity and relationship.

I also greatly enjoyed the intimate portrayals of other important philosophers, particularly insightful (and at times charming) regarding Wittgenstein.

Excellent in every way, plus…

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Worth the listen. Looking forward to reading. This story brings philosophy to life. It is an introduction to four philosophers that we should all wrestle with as we journey on our philosophical quest.

Excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The best is the narration, the content is fundamental, for it gives the essential elements of philosophy for a better future. The story sometimes goes into superfluous, though decoratively pretty, elements.

Fundamental

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I found the book the book empty
Just a marketing “scheme”
Nothing on serious philosophy
Just a gender revanche

Book about nothing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.