Philosophical quartet …

… Thomas Nagel  What is rude? Midgley, Murdoch, Anscombe, Foot  LRB 10 February 2022. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Both books explain how these women were formed, what they were like, their deep connections with one another, and the impact they had on the philosophy of their time. But they differ in scope and emphasis, so it is well worthwhile to read them both. Benjamin Lipscomb is American; Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman are British. His book covers a longer time span, and goes more deeply into the philosophical controversies in which the four were engaged, particularly the transformation in moral philosophy that began with a revolt against analytic orthodoxy in the late 1950s and changed the field completely over the next twenty years. He has produced a superior work of personal and intellectual history, sensitive and finely written. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman offer more biographical detail and information about secondary characters, but their detailed narrative stops in 1956, before the upheaval that is Lipscomb’s focus. Co-directors of a project called Women in Parenthesis, which promotes the study of the four to demonstrate the importance of women in philosophy, they are broadly concerned with the way these women resisted the style and methods of the analytic mainstream…