At university, A N Wilson met brilliant dons – and professors who struggled to define a tomato
I am a middlebrow who at the age of 20 did not even know what philosophy, as understood by modern philosophers, actually is. Nevertheless, finding myself at Oxford, I happened to know some of the giants in Nikhil Krishnan’s fascinating A Terribly Serious Adventure. The philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001) resembled a large, handsome, unwashed gypsy. Neighbours were frequently ringing up the NSPCC to complain that her ever-expanding brood of kids were being neglected while Mother translated Wittgenstein. ‘More’s playing with razor blades!’ one of them overheard. More was a wittily named son who came to add to the huge tribe. An observant Catholic, Elizabeth Anscombe was married to philosopher Peter Geach (1916-2013), who bore an uncanny resemblance to Pope John II. ‘I think it’s quite an achievement to have BAGGED your supervisor!’ Anscombe said to me when introduced by my then fiancée, a fellow of Anscombe’s Oxford college. I remember...
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