Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Interrupting the conversation: Donald MacKinnon, wartime tutor of Anscombe, Midgley, Murdoch and Foot

Mac Cumhaill, C; Wiseman, R

Interrupting the conversation: Donald MacKinnon, wartime tutor of Anscombe, Midgley, Murdoch and Foot Thumbnail


Authors

R Wiseman



Abstract

Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot all studied at Oxford University during the Second World War. One of their wartime tutors was Donald MacKinnon. This paper gives a broad overview of MacKinnon's philosophical outlook as it was developing at this time. Four talks from between 1938 and 1941—‘And the Son of Man That Thou Visiteth Him’ (1938), ‘What Is a Metaphysical Statement?’ (1940), ‘The Function of Philosophy in Education’ (1941) and ‘Revelation and Social Justice’ (1941)—give a foretaste of the conception of moral philosophy that he later articulated in A Study of Ethical Theory (1957). We identify aspects of his philosophical outlook and unusual treatment of method that likely shaped his teaching. We trace his influence in the work of Midgley, Murdoch and Foot, all of whom studied with him from Trinity Term 1940 until their finals in 1942. In the case of Anscombe, though she was briefly his student—he taught her Plato—she and MacKinnon moved in shared intellectual circles, and there is reason to think that some of the forces that shaped MacKinnon's outlook also shaped hers. The sketch we offer is incomplete—in particular, we are not able to do justice to MacKinnon's explicitly theological writings—but we hope to achieve three things. First, to go some way towards indicating the importance of the teacher MacKinnon to understanding the work of his better-known pupils. Second, to introduce a philosopher for whom the teaching of philosophy, practical ethics and metaphysical theory were deeply entwined. Third, to reflect on the relationship between, on the one hand, a conception of the practice and significance of metaphysics and, on the other, a view on the role and nature of philosophical teaching and learning.

Citation

Mac Cumhaill, C., & Wiseman, R. (2022). Interrupting the conversation: Donald MacKinnon, wartime tutor of Anscombe, Midgley, Murdoch and Foot. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 56(6), 838-850. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12689

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Nov 3, 2022
Publication Date 2022
Deposit Date Oct 17, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of the Philosophy of Education
Print ISSN 0309-8249
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 56
Issue 6
Pages 838-850
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12689

Files

Published Journal Article (165 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Philosophy of Education published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.





You might also like



Downloadable Citations