Paul Dummett and Michael Grice -- oops

Speranza

"Address for the Somerville Philippa Foot Memorial by Professor Sir Michael Dummett"

Paul Dummett writes:

"I only really got to know Philippa well in the last 5 or so years of her life, but feel none the less fortunate for that."

"Even when she became physically frail, she remained incredibly alert, interested, warm, often mischievous."

"She loved to hear stories of the outside world – ‘tales we scarcely believe’, she would say – and laugh about people’s eccentricities."

"She’d entertain you from her sick bed as if she’d invited you for dinner – offering one of the chocolates that had become part of her staple diet and if you replied ‘No, I’m fine thanks’, she’d insist saying ‘Well, you’d be finer with a chocolate’."

"Even in this compromised state, she somehow managed to retain the elan, charm and playfulness with language that were among her gifts."

"When I asked her once if she’d caught a cold, she said: ‘No, I’ve never caught a cold. I’ve had a few of my own .....’"

"I’d like to read a tribute from my father, Michael Dummett, who co-incidentally is in his sick-bed, and unable to read it in person, but sends his good wishes to all present."

----

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Dummett writes:

"Philippa Foot was one of the few people in Oxford whom my wife and I got to know soon after our marriage. I had been made known to her by Elizabeth Anscombe, a Research Fellow in Philosophy at Somerville, who had taught me for a time while I was an undergraduate. Philippa was a kind, calm and gentle person and was fond of children. She valued honesty as the greatest of the virtues."

"After some dismal experiences in different parts of Oxford in 1952 Ann and I joyfully accepted the offer of Philippa and Michael Foot (not the politician) to occupy the top two floors of their house at

---- 16 Park Town."

"We endeavoured to be good tenants; but the incident that burned its memory on my mind was one in which the Foots returned late from a visit elsewhere and I, in the meanwhile, had set the basement kitchen on fire. Fortunately the Fire Brigade had come quickly in response to my emergency call; I had been terrified that the Foots would return before their visit."

"Although little had been burned in the kitchen, everything had been drenched and flooded. I crept down to confront Michael and Philippa in their ground floor sitting-room."

"Our Nanny had taken our two children and Ann to a house two doors away, as she was convinced that we should all be immediately expelled from the house."

"Michael Foot descended to see what damage had been done. He came back, and I was relieved and charmed by the Foot’s kind and tolerant dismissal of my apologies.
In 1956, we saw the chance of ourselves becoming owners of a house in Park Town. We put down a mortgage on 54 Park Town and are still living in that house today.
Philippa engaged in many benevolent causes and was one of the founders of Oxfam. As such, she belonged to a small group of people who started the very first charity shop in 1948. The shop is still going today in Oxford’s Broad Street, although it’s unlikely to receive some of the more interesting donations given in those early days, such as false teeth and even a live donkey! This commitment and dedication to Oxfam remained throughout her life."

"In 1956 Philippa involved herself in help for refugees from Hungary, after the replacement of the reformist Nayl by the Soviet subservient Kader. Many Hungarian refugees came to Britain, including Oxford. Some of their routes were mysterious: one batch were found to be absent from the bus delivering them to Carfax, but turned up two days later. It was never discovered who fed them during the interim.
Philippa acquired the reputation of being a somewhat fierce philosophy tutor. She had indeed an ardent belief in the need to be faithful to philosophical truths.
So now, here she was, happily married, ready to make great strides in the academic subject she had chosen as her own, when all collapsed. Her husband, after participating for some years in what seemed to be a genuinely and affectionate and harmonious union, suddenly deserted his wife without forewarning or explanation. I believe that this event, of whose possible future occurrence she had had no inkling, had a profoundly shattering effect upon Philippa."

"As we know, she never married again. Not unsurprisingly, she abandoned the house in Park Town."

"Less foreseeably, she gave up her straightforward career as an Oxford don. Instead, she took up a mixed career, still with a connection to Oxford, but also as one of the lights of Philosophy Departments in California. She retained the house in Walton Street, bequeathed to her by her friend, Ann Cobb, and continued to be Fellow of Somerville College."

"Her attraction to the United States was not surprising. Although her maiden name was Bosanquet, indicating her membership of the English almost-aristocracy, she was also grand-daughter of the American President, Grover Cleveland."

----

"When she retired from university teaching, she retreated to the house in Walton Street, and to her membership of the Senior Common Room of Somerville."

"What is singular about Philippa’s philosphical career is its shape. She was the author of a decent number of philosophical articles, not a meagre number, but not
an abundant number either; and she finished with a book, not just a collection of her already published articles – she had had one of those – but a completely and wholly integrated book. All were confined to a very important but technically narrow branch of philosophy – moral philosophy. She probably taught other branches, but she wrote only about moral philosophy. The articles had successively shifted their position: the book, Natural Goodness, written very close to the end of her life, was her final statement."

"The thesis she presented in this book can be only faintly sketched by saying that she defends, or rather, seeks to establish, an objectivist account of morality. Our Journalists, perhaps following other Oxford philosophers, are accustomed to draw a sharp distinction between fact and value. Fact has to do with what can in principle be established beyond anyone’s dispute as true or false: value is a matter of individual approval or preference. Philippa rejected this dichotomy wholly, except perhaps as regards aesthetics, about which, as far as I know, she never wrote. If I say that someone performed a good action in doing so and so, or that someone is by and large a good person, her view is that I say something which can be demonstrated to be right or wrong as much as can a statement that a particular rabbit has gone down a particular rabbit-hole."

"How is this to be argued? By far the best way to find out is to read Natural Goodness. Whether you accept it or whether you do not, I doubt that you will be able to deny that we have here something strong and beautiful."

"This was a very unusual proceeding. Nowadays, however it may be with academics of other disciplines, most professional philosophers either write no book at all and stick to producing articles, or write an extensive book fairly early in their career. Philippa appeared to have been nosing out the truth, and, having in the end to her satisfaction found it, stated it without digressions or needless comparisons, leaving those capable of accepting it to do so."

"This interpretation seems to fit very well with her behaviour. Not very long after the appearance of Natural Goodness, she took to her bed, as Victorian ladies sometimes did, as if, having achieved what she had hoped to achieve, she could now simply watch what others did."

"Natural Goodness is a short book, but with a very dense content. That content it would take a course of lectures to convey. She set out her argument, or rather, sequence of arguments, lucidly and forcefully; and, to my mind, it would be difficult to counter them. The result is the greatest work on moral philosophy since at least G.E. Moore."