Margaret MacDonald (philosopher)

Margaret MacDonald
Born (1907-04-09)9 April 1907
London
Died 7 January 1956(1956-01-07) (aged 48)
London
Region England

Margaret MacDonald (9 April 1907 – 7 January 1956) was a British analytic philosopher.[1]

Life and Education

Margaret MacDonald was an abandoned child. She was awarded a first class degree in philosophy from Birkbeck College, London, in 1932, followed by a PhD in 1934. Her supervisor was Susan Stebbing and she provided her with financial assistance during her research.[2] MacDonald joined Girton College, Cambridge, as a Pfeiffer Research Fellow in Moral Sciences between 1934–37. 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.[4] They later convinced Wittgenstein to allow them to write his lectures down.

Career

From 1937–41 MacDonald taught philosophy at St Hilda's, 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. 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.

She remained very active in academic philosophy for the rest of her life. Her early articles were criticisms of the work of contemporary philosophers, however she later concentrated on the field of aesthetics. She was also interested in political philosophy and published a significant article 'Natural Rights'.[5] In this paper she argues against the idea that natural rights are founded on the natural law. 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. 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 her death in 1956 following heart surgery.[6]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Grayling, Anthony C. (2006). Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy. Continuum. ISBN 9780199754694.
  2. ↑ Addis, Mark (2005). MacDonald, Margaret (1907-56). Bristol: Thoemmes. pp. 601–605. ISBN 184371096X.
  3. 1 2 Waite, Mary Ellen (1995). History of women philosophers, vol. 4. Kluwer. p. 364. ISBN 0792328086.
  4. ↑ Ambrose, Alice (1979). Wittgenstein's lectures : Cambridge, 1932-1935; from the notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret Macdonald. Blackwell. ISBN 0631101411.
  5. ↑ MacDonald, Margaret (1946). "Natural Rights". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 47: 225–250. JSTOR 4544427.
  6. ↑ Saw, Ruth (1956). "Dr Margaret MacDonald". Analysis. 16 (4): 73–74. doi:10.1093/analys/16.4.73.
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