An Introduction to the philosophy of Mary Midgley with beer & biscuits
Tuesday 25TH March 7.30pm
#PhiloFortnight2025 #PhilosophyMatters
Join philosophers Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman
at The Ship Inn
Tuesday 25th March, 7.30 pm,
£5.00 per person with all monies to 'The Brilliant Club Charity'
at The Ship Inn
Tuesday 25th March, 7.30 pm,
£5.00 per person with all monies to 'The Brilliant Club Charity'
#PhiloFortnight2025 to explore and celebrate Mary Midgley’s philosophy with biscuits, beer and poetry. #PhilosophyMatters
Mary Midgley (1919-2018) was a distinguished British moral philosopher of the last century. Based in the North-East, she was a pioneering and prolific voice in philosophy of science, feminism and environmental philosophy, writing hundreds of articles and 18 books, the last of which appeared when she was 99. Known for her earthy and sardonic style, her prescient work urges the need for a complete imaginative reappraisal of our relations with the natural world and with ourselves.
Mary Midgley (1919-2018) was a distinguished British moral philosopher of the last century. Based in the North-East, she was a pioneering and prolific voice in philosophy of science, feminism and environmental philosophy, writing hundreds of articles and 18 books, the last of which appeared when she was 99. Known for her earthy and sardonic style, her prescient work urges the need for a complete imaginative reappraisal of our relations with the natural world and with ourselves.
Mary Scrutton was born in 1919 and studied Classics at Somerville College, Oxford (1938-42). During the war she worked in the Civil Service before returning to Oxford to begin a PhD with E. R. Dodds on Plotinus. She taught for four terms at Reading (1949-50). In 1950 she married fellow-philosopher Geoffrey Midgley and moved with him to Newcastle upon Tyne. When their three children were teenagers she took a teaching post at Newcastle University, where she remained until the department’s closure in 1980. She died in 2018.
Midgley is best known for her book Beast and Man and for her public support of Gaia theory. She wrote about human nature at a time when the subject was taboo and was one of the first philosophers in Britain to take animals and nature seriously as philosophical topics. She wrote for the public about the necessity of ‘philosophical plumbing’—the task of understanding and transforming our concepts, especially when those concepts are out of date or causing practical problems. She was a fierce advocate for the history of ideas.
Midgley is best known for her book Beast and Man and for her public support of Gaia theory. She wrote about human nature at a time when the subject was taboo and was one of the first philosophers in Britain to take animals and nature seriously as philosophical topics. She wrote for the public about the necessity of ‘philosophical plumbing’—the task of understanding and transforming our concepts, especially when those concepts are out of date or causing practical problems. She was a fierce advocate for the history of ideas.
#PhiloFortnight2025
British Philosophy Fortnight is a new annual initiative to celebrate, promote and champion philosophy. British Philosophy Fortnight will raise awareness of what philosophy is and why it matters. Philosophy matters intrinsically, as a vibrant intellectual discipline, and extrinsically, providing crucial skills for living in complex worlds and for responding to pressing global challenges, from pandemics to climate change.
British Philosophy Fortnight is a new annual initiative to celebrate, promote and champion philosophy. British Philosophy Fortnight will raise awareness of what philosophy is and why it matters. Philosophy matters intrinsically, as a vibrant intellectual discipline, and extrinsically, providing crucial skills for living in complex worlds and for responding to pressing global challenges, from pandemics to climate change.
The Brilliant Club
Our mission:-
We mobilise the PhD community to support students who are less advantaged to access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there.
The Brilliant Club works with schools and universities across the UK.
Our mission:-
We mobilise the PhD community to support students who are less advantaged to access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there.
The Brilliant Club works with schools and universities across the UK.