Margaret MacDonald (born. 1903) was a British philosopher who was active from the early 1930s until her death in 1956. An insightful and original thinker, she has nonetheless been largely neglected in academic philosophy since her death, like many of her female peers. Fortunately, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in her work. This has brought to light her contributions to a number of areas in philosophy, including ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of language.
Aside from her academic work, MacDonald served as the librarian of St Hilda’s College in Oxford between 1937 and 1941. Not much is known about her time as a librarian. Her obituary in St Hilda’s Chronical of the Association of Senior Members states only that she ‘efficiently carried the burden of a growing library, and in particular she greatly improved our philosophy section’ (Whitlock, 1955-1956, 16). What’s interesting, however, is how much of an impact she was able to have on the academic world, whilst holding a position in a library rather than an academic department.
MacDonald’s time as a librarian followed on from her PhD at the University of London (under Susan Stebbing, the first woman in the UK to become a philosophy professor) and a stint in Cambridge as a research fellow, where she was something of an acolyte of Ludwig Wittgenstein. As such, by the late 1930s she had been steeped in the cutting edge of academic philosophy, and her relocation to Oxford provided an opportunity to expand into another corner of the philosophical world.
Whilst working at St Hilda’s MacDonald published a number of interesting and original papers that covered a wide range of areas in philosophy. In her paper ‘The Philosopher’s Use of Analogy’ (1938) she argues, like Wittgenstein, that many traditional philosophical perplexities arise because philosophers misunderstand and misuse perfectly ordinary and unmysterious words. The job of philosophers, then, should be to better understand our ordinary use of these words, in order to avoid these conceptual confusions. Her paper ‘The Language of Political Theory’ (1941) applies this linguistic approach to the question of natural rights and the social contract. It represents MacDonald’s first foray into political philosophy, an area she would be preoccupied with for the rest of her career.
MacDonald’s close relationship with Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle (1900 – 1976) also attests to her intimate involvement with the world of philosophy during this period. It was a relationship that seems to have had a great impact both on their academic and personal lives. Just after her arrival in Oxford, MacDonald participated in a symposium entitled ‘Induction and Hypothesis’ (1937), along with Ryle. Historian of philosophy Cheryl Misak (2024, 647-651) has recently argued that Ryle was heavily influenced by the paper MacDonald contributed to this symposium. Most importantly, she argues that MacDonald brought to Ryle’s attention the distinction between knowing how to do something (practical knowledge) and knowing that something is the case (propositional knowledge). This distinction would go on to play a major role in Ryle’s work, and he would discuss it at length in his magnum opus The Concept of Mind (1949).
In addition to their academic interactions, MacDonald and Ryle developed a close friendship, which has been explored in detail by philosopher Michael Kremer (2022). This friendship is evidenced by a letter from MacDonald to Ryle that is kept in the Ryle archive in Linacre College, Oxford. This is unfortunately the only surviving letter in what was likely a lengthy correspondence (Kremer, 2022, 294). Indeed, friends of MacDonald and Ryle speculated about them getting married, a possibility which never materialised, likely due to the fact that Ryle was a closeted gay man (Misak, 2024, 653).
MacDonald’s time as a librarian was characterised by financial hardship and professional uncertainty. Kremer (2022, 292) reports that she had significant student debts following her PhD, and had to supplement her income at the library with marking examination papers, as well as by doing some teaching in her college. At the end of the war, however, her fortunes change. She was finally appointed to a permanent academic position at Bedford College in London (which would later merged with Royal Holloway), and she became one of the editors of Analysis, still one of the most prestigious philosophy journals published in the UK. She stayed at Bedford College until she died in early 1956, while recovering from heart surgery (Waithe, 1995, 365).
MacDonald’s story will feel familiar to a lot of people working in libraries today. The market for academic jobs in the humanities is particularly tough at the moment. Like MacDonald, many aspiring academics struggling to find work turn to libraries as an alternate way to make a living in a broadly academic environment. It’s fortunate that MacDonald had the opportunity to participate so fully in her chosen subject, despite not holding an academic position. This opportunity allowed her to make the contributions that she did to philosophy in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
References
- Kremer, M. (2022). ‘Margaret MacDonald and Gilbert Ryle: A Philosophical Friendship’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 30, pp.288–311.
- MacDonald, M. (1938). ‘The Philosopher’s Use of Analogy’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 38, pp.291-312.
- MacDonald, M. (1941). ‘The Language of Political Theory’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 41, pp.91-112.
- MacDonald, M., Ryle, G. and Berlin, I. (1937). Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 16, pp.20–102.
- Misak, C. (2024). ‘Ryle’s Debt to Pragmatism and Margaret MacDonald’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 62(4), pp.639-656.
- Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson’s University Library.
- Waithe, M. E. (1995). A History of Women Philosophers, Vol. 4. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
- Whitlock, D. (1955–56). ‘Margaret MacDonald’. Chronicle of the Association of Senior Members, pp.16–17.
