Margaret MacDonald and Analytic Philosophy in the 1930s: Unpublished Letters with Biographical and Interpretive Essays - Hardcover

by Michael Kremer (Author), Cheryl Misak (Author)

This volume examines the important but, until recently, forgotten work of the British analytic philosopher Margaret Macdonald. Macdonald's career spanned one of the most significant and fascinating periods in the history of analytic philosophy: the pre-war London of Susan Stebbing as she advanced philosophical analysis; the Cambridge of Ludwig Wittgenstein as he lectured on his new practice-centred philosophy; the Oxford of Gilbert Ryle and ordinary language philosophy; and the post-war London of A.J. Ayer as he defended a version of logical positivism. In this predominantly male, elite world, Macdonald was an anomaly: a woman, abandoned as a child, raised by foster parents and in an orphanage, poor for much of her life. Remarkably, she made a highly respected academic life for herself. A talented philosopher, she was a major influence on Ryle, and one of those few who really understood Wittgenstein during the 1930s. She also helped found, and later edited, the journal Analysis, and was a serious scholar of C. S. Peirce, introducing his complex work to her British colleagues.

Cheryl Misak and Michael Kremer provide a biographical essay, a transcription of a no-longer accessible paper on Peirce, an essay on Macdonald as a scholar of pragmatism, and an essay on her as a scholar of Wittgenstein. The centrepiece is a set of letters from Macdonald to Max Black, written between 1932 and 1937--a crucial time for the development of the analytic school, embracing Cambridge analysis, Viennese logical positivism, Oxford linguistic philosophy, and American pragmatism and neo-realisms. The letters shed light on the cultural, social, and political situation in Britain in the 1930s and its impact on academic life, revealing that, against the mighty obstacles stacked against them, some women in English philosophy before World War II were able to carve out paths as professional philosophers.

Author Biography

Michael Kremer, Mary R. Morton Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, University of Chicago, Cheryl Misak, University Professor and Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto

Michael Kremer is Mary R. Morton Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus at the University of Chicago. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh, then taught at the University of Notre Dame from 1986 to 2001. His dissertation and early publications were in logic and the philosophy of language. Beginning in the mid-1990s he developed a passion for the history of analytic philosophy, initially focusing on Frege, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein. Over the past decade he has turned his attention to mid-twentieth-century Oxford ordinary language philosophy, especially Gilbert Ryle, as well as the philosophy of Margaret Macdonald.

Cheryl Misak is University Professor and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. She works on American pragmatism, the history of analytic philosophy, ethics and political philosophy, and the philosophy of medicine. She is the author of several books, including Cambridge Pragmatism (OUP, 2018) and The American Pragmatists (OUP, 2015), as well as an acclaimed biography of the philosopher Frank Ramsey (OUP, 2021).