The Coming Philosophers

This chapter traces the early development of Oxford philosophy—and the book’s four subjects—from the middle of World War II through the late 1940s. During this period, Murdoch, Foot, and Midgley all left Oxford briefly, only to gradually return for ongoing scholarship or to teach; Anscombe never entirely left. Together, the four would begin the conversations that would enable them to break out of the dominant world-picture of their age. Also returning to Oxford was R.M. Hare, whose grueling experiences as a prisoner of war on the Burma-Thailand railroad impacted him deeply. For the women, Hare would become both a colleague and a fierce opponent. At the same time, Oxford was developing a distinctive philosophical culture in which ethics had little place. The emotivism popularized by A.J. Ayer and C.L. Stevenson had undermined the possibility of serious work on ethics in the eyes of Oxford philosophers.