Personal Life and Education
Foot was the daughter of Esther Cleveland (who was born in the White House), and a granddaughter of U.S. President Grover Cleveland. Her paternal grandfather was Sir Frederick Albert Bosanquet, the Common Serjeant of London from 1900 to 1917.
Foot began her career in philosophy as a student and tutor at Somerville College, Oxford. She spent many hours there in debate with G.E.M. Anscombe, who persuaded her that non-cognitivism was misguided.
For many years Foot held the position of Griffin Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
She was one of the founders of Oxfam and an atheist. She was at one time married to the historian M. R. D. Foot.
Read more about this topic: Philippa Foot
Famous quotes containing the words personal, life and/or education:
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)
“When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,—muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)