“The Oxford Quartet”, thinking women – Libération

British philosophers Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman cross-reference the biographies of four friends Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch, from their loves and annoyances to their contributions to contemporary moral philosophy.

The opening scene the Oxford Quartet worth its symbolic weight. On May 1, 1956, professors at Oxford University were convened to vote, among other things, on the awarding of an honorary degree to former President of the United States Harry S. Truman. “On hearing his name, one could not help but continue within oneself: “Hiroshima, Nagasaki.” The assembly, made up of a majority of men, expects that a handful of women will contest this decision, the rumor has preceded them. Elizabeth Anscombe gets up to go to the lectern. In her speech delivered in English (tradition required Latin), she compares Truman to the greatest criminals in history, Nero, Genghis Khan, Hitler or Stalin, and calls him a “butcher”. The argument irritates, casts a chill, it does not prevent a positive vote and, on June 20, Truman receives his diploma in a scarlet robe and black velvet cap, then dines at the official annual meal called “Gaudy”, still exclusively male , with “a string of bishops, knights and lords, ambassadors and earls”.

Who is “Miss Elizabeth Anscombe”, the Oxford Trouser Terror? A major British philosopher of the 20th century, the most brilliant of the group of friends she formed with Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and