Anscombe as Teacher of Murdoch and Foot in the 1940s and 1950s
Salesianum vol. 88 (2026) n. 2, 320-339
Section: Studia
Received: 2026-02-10 00:00:00 - Approved: 2026-03-20 00:00:00
Sommario
This paper argues that Elizabeth Anscombe occupied a distinctive pedagogical role in relation to Philippa Foot and Iris Murdoch in the late 1940s, functioning as a teacher and mentor. Drawing on Foot’s retrospective testimony and Murdoch’s diaries, the essay presents the intellectual asymmetries created by wartime disruption and Anscombe’s sustained formation under Wittgenstein. Albeit in a preliminary way, the paper shows how Anscombe’s lectures, conversations, and personal exchanges introduced Foot and Murdoch to Wittgensteinian methods, sharpened their resistance to prevailing Oxford orthodoxies, and fostered habits of philosophical seriousness oriented toward depth rather than cleverness. In Foot’s case, Anscombe’s guidance would eventually redirect her toward Aquinas and the moral significance of the virtues; in Murdoch’s case, Anscombe provided a rigorous model of philosophical practice that gradually displaced earlier existentialist influences and shaped her engagement with Plato and Wittgenstein. The paper reframes their relationship as pedagogical and argues that Anscombe’s influence was formative in enabling Foot and Murdoch to develop independent philosophical voices within, and typically in variance with, the dominant postwar British philosophy.
Parole chiave
Elizabeth Anscombe | Philippa Foot | Iris Murdoch | Wittgenstein | Philosophical mentorship
