Greg McElwain

News | In Parenthesis

A CfA for the 2nd Predoctoral Conference on the quartet in Manchester in June: deadline 20 February. For more information about how to submit and attend please see our website:

www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk/news/

A @inparenthesis.bsky.social update: Proud to be helping to organise this Symposium that builds on @domlash.bsky.social agenda setting work here. CfA The Quartet-in-Film Symposium: Vice & Violence Winchester in June @uniwinchester.bsky.social
www.winchester.ac.uk/research/Our... #filmsky #philsky

Mary Midgley saw philosophy as mapping relationships between fields. Though she never fully critiqued economics, Nat Dyer argues her ideas on myths, reductionism & ecology offer a powerful challenge to today’s economic orthodoxy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYNCodkhbrk

“This may ultimately make things messier, rather than tidier, on the ground” Interview with Greg McElwain, Team USA for “Philosophy in the Wild”

Please enjoy this piece originally posted by PAN Works Fellow and Virtual Writer in Residence, Mara-Daria Cojocaru, PD Dr. phil., in which she discusses humans and wolves with Professor Greg McElwain.

#animals #ethics #wellbeing #compassion #conservation #empathy #communities #intrinsicvalue

Amazing!

We were pleased to welcome as one of our key note speakers @drelizabethmac1.bsky.social who spoke about the work of the philosopher Mary Midgley. #ThoughtfulConference2025 #PhilosophyMatters #WorldPhilosophyDay

I'm doing an online webniar tomorrow at 3pm (UK) with the wonderful @inparenthesis.bsky.social team on 'Mary Midgley among the economists'

Looking forward to joining the dots between one of our best recent philosophers and the critique of mainstream economics

More info & zoom link below 👇

Mary Midgley and Jane Goodall in 1989.

Goodall's influence is clear throughout Midgley's work and central to her claim that philosophy needs ethology

News | In Parenthesis

We're excited to announce our new Online Seminar Series for the 2025-6 academic year!! We have 5 fantastic talks coming up. For titles and abstracts see our website - and get the dates in your diary!

www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk/news/

#philsky #philosophy

A little early! Sep 13 😊

One is the brilliant #EllieRobson @philosophellie.bsky.social on #MaryMidgley and #Animals! Not to be missed and again, what an incredible resource and gift #PhilosophyBites is #philosophy #philsky @inparenthesis.bsky.social
#Midgley

The wonderful @philosophellie.bsky.social on Mary Midgley’s animal thought.

A good religion/science question since some historical traditions did see the universe as much more limited in scope/structure (e.g. the firmament).

"I suppose in a very admirable and harmless way, I take science to have a religious aspect. That is, it involves people responding to the vastness of the universe."

-Mary Midgley, Mary Midgley: An Introduction

#marymidgley #philsky

"We rejoice in the whole of nature and being part of it, as something to which we belong."

-Mary Midgley, Mary Midgley: An Introduction

#marymidgley #philsky

Back at the very special #dewisacre for more #philosophyinthewild ‘finding hope in mixed communities’ & this time - with the adults! It means the world to us that the adults relished this event, fell in love with the wisdom of #MaryMidgley & that Ned the cat was so happy & involved too 1/3

Back in the garden, for #philosophyinthewild, which has been a truly #mixedcommunity garden this week! 🐑
@stdavidscathedral.bsky.social @inparenthesis.bsky.social
#PhilosophyMatters #MaryMidgley #Arts #Poetry #Hope #FindingHopeInMixedCommunities
www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk/philosophy-i...

"Central to thinking about animals is the idea of community: a genuine unity of beings which are important to each other."

-Mary Midgley, Mary Midgley: An Introduction

#marymidgley #philsky

"How to think involves how to live."

-Mary Midgley, Mary Midgley: An Introduction

#marymidgley #philsky

"The world in which the kestrel moves, the world that it sees, is, and always will be, entirely beyond us. That there are such worlds all around us is an essential feature of our world."

-Mary Midgley, Beast and Man

#marymidgley #philsky

Indeed! And I'm especially attached to that edition because it's a copy that Midgley gave me in 2012. Had an extra copy laying around!

“Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.”

-Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By

#marymidgley #philsky

"The trouble with human beings ([Butler] said) is not really that they love themselves too much; they ought to love themselves more. The trouble is simply that they don’t love others enough."

-Mary Midgley, Utopias, Dolphins, and Computers

#marymidgley #philsky

The philosopher Mary Midgley undergirds a lot of my thinking (even about economics)

I just reread this piece I wrote about her in 2020 and it still holds up pretty well

philosophynow.org/issues/140/M...

Midgley, Stebbing, and the History of Philosophy A workshop devoted to the work of Susan Stebbing (1885-1943) and Mary Midgley (1919-2018) and their place in and relation to the history of philosophy. ​ When : 17th July 2025 Where : Monica...

Upcoming workshop on Susan Stebbing and Mary Midgley: ianjameskidd.weebly.com/midgley-steb...

@philosophellie.bsky.social
Ian Kidd
Karl Egerton
Me

"Great philosophers, then, need a combination of gifts that is rare. They must be lawyers as well as poets. They must have both the new vision that points the way we are to go and the logical doggedness that sorts out just what is, and what is not, involved in going there."

-Mary Midgley, UDC

Thanks, Amy - writing it has been very enjoyable!

Mary Midgley and The Necessity of Philosophy Mary Midgley has become an increasingly prominent name in recent years. This could be attributed to her passing in 2018, which, along with the rise in Midgley and “Wartime Quartet” scholarship, has dr...

We are naturally connected: to the wild world, animals, one another. @gsmcelwain.bsky.social has an excellent overview of Mary Midgley's work, which is always relevant and increasingly prominent. From the APA blog. #philsky

Thanks, Joseph! She's an important thinker.

Absolutely!