ABSTRACT
They were four aces in a deck stacked against them. Elizabeth, Philippa, Iris, Mary. Going up to Oxford University as women, they came down as philosophers. Not just philosophers, but philosophers of distinction, who had the temerity to upturn the regnant philosophy. Uppity women, uppity scholars. Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley (and a bit later Mary Warnock), remarkably different from one another, together became “metaphysical animals,” fast friends, enduring colleagues, and trenchant critics of the philosophy that they had come to study. 1 They found themselves at Oxford at a time when a majority of the men were away for the war, and the colleges were populated by women, men too old to serve in the war, ordinands, and some male conscientious objectors. Male absence worked strongly to their benefit, affording them full attention they might not otherwise have received from the dons.
