Iris Murdoch’s Practical Metaphysics A Guide to her Early Writings

This book explores Iris Murdoch as a philosopher who, through her distinctive methodology, exploits the advantages of having a mind on the borders of literature and politics in her early career writings (pre-The Sovereignty of Good). By focusing on a single decade of Murdoch’s early career, Jamieson tracks connections between her views on the state of literature and politics in postwar Britain and her approach to the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. Furthermore, this close study reveals that, far from a stylistic quirk, Murdoch’s use of metaphors, analogies, and other literary devices is internal to her methodology. Finally, rather than asking what Murdoch’s views are, this work will ask “what is Murdoch trying to achieve with her writings and public lectures, and how does she go about this?” By answering the latter question, we will have a new strategy for interpreting her writings more generally.  The book contributes to the growing body of scholarship focusing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophical writings, and on women in the history of analytic philosophy.

1. Introduction: Is Clarity Enough? Audience Aims and Methods.- 2. Analyzing Murdoch’s Methods.- 3. Murdoch and the Behaviourists.- 4. Sublime Literature, Love, and Freedom.- 5. Murdoch and the Limits of Modern Moral Philosophy.- 6. Moral Philosophy, Moralism, and the Socialist Imagination.- 7. From the Sublime to the Beautiful.

Lesley Jamieson is a researcher at the Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic