Margaret MacDonald (philosopher)

Margaret MacDonald (9 April 1903[1] – 7 January 1956) was a British analytic philosopher. She worked in the areas of philosophy of language, political philosophy and aesthetics.

Margaret MacDonald
Born(1903-04-09)9 April 1903
London, England
Died7 January 1956(1956-01-07) (aged 52)
London, England

Life and education

Margaret MacDonald was born in London and abandoned as a child.[2][3]

She was educated at University College London and was awarded a first class degree in philosophy in 1932, followed by a PhD in 1934. Her PhD supervisor was Susan Stebbing[4] who provided MacDonald with financial assistance during her research.[3]

MacDonald joined Girton College, Cambridge, as a Pfeiffer Research Fellow in Moral Sciences between 1934 and 1937. While at Cambridge, she studied under G.E. Moore and was part of the inner circle of students that Ludwig Wittgenstein taught.[3] Along with fellow student Alice Ambrose she secretly (since he did not allow this) made notes during Wittgenstein's lectures, which were later published.[5] They later convinced Wittgenstein to allow them continue to write his lectures down.

Career

From 1937 to 1941 MacDonald taught philosophy at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she was also librarian. During the war she was temporary principal in the Board of Trade. This was followed by a lectureship at Bedford College, London.[3] At this time, she was one of a very small number of women teaching philosophy outside of Oxford University.[4] From 1947 she was also a lecturer on Ethics to staff at the Home Office. She became reader in philosophy at Bedford College in 1955.

MacDonald's early articles were criticisms of the work of contemporary philosophers, however she later concentrated on aesthetics, particularly how language relates to art.[6] She was also interested in political philosophy and published a significant article 'Natural Rights'.[7] In this paper she argues against the idea that natural rights are founded on the natural law. Her view is summarised by Jonathan Wolff as: "...statements of natural rights are akin to decisions, declaring 'here I stand', and...uses an analogy with another area of critical judgement—in her case literary appreciation—to point out the possibility of rational argument through the presentation of reasons".[8]

Her work attracted substantial attention at the time. Two of her articles were reprinted in the Logic and Language (1951) series which included articles that were representative of current philosophical trends.[4] Having studied with Wittgenstein before coming to Oxford in 1937, she deployed and developed Wittgensteinian themes in her own subsequent work, and it has been argued that this work was an important source of ideas in her close friend Gilbert Ryle's philosophy.[9]

MacDonald helped to found the philosophy journal Analysis together with Susan Stebbing, C.A. Mace and Gilbert Ryle in 1933. She was also the journal's editor from 1948 until 1956.

She died in London in 1956, following heart surgery.[10]

Publications

References
  1. Kremer, Michael (15 June 2021). "Margaret MacDonald and Gilbert Ryle: a philosophical friendship". British Journal for the History of Philosophy. 30 (2): 288–311. doi:10.1080/09608788.2021.1932409. ISSN 0960-8788. S2CID 236297953. "Addis, "MacDonald, Margaret (1907–56)", 1997, gives her birthdate as 9 April 1907. However, her birth certificate, and the records of both the National Children's Home and Orphanage, and Girton College, confirm the date of 9 April 1903
  2. "MacDonald, Margaret (c. 1907–1956) ." Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. . Encyclopedia.com. 27 Apr. 2022 https://www.encyclopedia.com .
  3. Waite, Mary Ellen (1995). History of women philosophers, vol. 4. Kluwer. p. 364. ISBN 0-7923-2808-6.
  4. Addis, Mark (2005). "MacDonald, Margaret (1907-56)". In Brown, Stuart (ed.). T he Dictionary of Twentieth-century British Philosophers. Bristol: Thoemmes. pp.601–605. ISBN 1-84371-096-X. Reprinted in The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy (2006) ISBN 978-0-19-975469-4
  5. Ambrose, Alice (1979). Wittgenstein's lectures : Cambridge, 1932-1935; from the notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret Macdonald. Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-10141-1.
  6. MacDonald, Margaret (1954). "Some Distinctive Features of Arguments used in Criticism of the Arts". In Elton, William (ed.). Aesthetics and language. Oxford University Press.
  7. MacDonald, Margaret (1946). "Natural Rights". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 47: 225–250. doi:10.1093/aristotelian/47.1.225. JSTOR 4544427.
  8. Wolff, Jonathan (2013). "Analytic Political Philosophy". In Beaney, Michael (ed.). Oxford Handbook of The History of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford University Press. p. 804. ISBN 978-0-19-923884-2. [author preprint available for download here]
  9. Kremer, Michael (2020). "Margaret MacDonald and Gilbert Ryle:a philosophical friendship" (PDF). British Journal for the History of Philosophy. 30 (2): 288–311. doi:10.1080/09608788.2021.1932409. S2CID 236297953.
  10. Saw, Ruth (1956). "Dr Margaret MacDonald". Analysis. 16 (4): 73–74. doi:10.1093/analys/16.4.73.
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