Murdoch on Truth and Love

235 Pages·2018·2.212 MB·English

by  Gary Browning

Philosophers
in
Depth
Murdoch on
Truth and Love
Edited by
Gary Browning
Philosophers in Depth
Series Editor
Constantine Sandis
Department of Philosophy
University of Hertfordshire
Hatfield, UK
Philosophers in Depth is a series of themed edited collections focusing on
particular aspects of the thought of major figures from the history of
philosophy. The volumes showcase a combination of newly commis-
sioned and previously published work with the aim of deepening our
understanding of the topics covered. Each book stands alone, but taken
together the series will amount to a vast collection of critical essays cover-
ing the history of philosophy, exploring issues that are central to the ideas
of individual philosophers. This project was launched with the financial
support of the Institute for Historical and Cultural Research at Oxford
Brookes University, for which we are very grateful.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14552
Gary Browning
Editor
Murdoch on Truth
and Love
Editor
Gary Browning
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford, UK
Philosophers in Depth
ISBN 978-3-319-76215-9 ISBN 978-3-319-76216-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76216-6
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Preface
There are many people, who have been involved in helping to bring this
this project to completion. Perhaps first of all I should recognize the con-
tribution of the contributors. Murdoch scholarship is blessed with many
scholars of exceptional talents, and the contributors to this volume are
distinguished students of Murdoch. They review Murdoch and truth from
different points of view. One of the features of this volume is that it
evokes the many sides of Murdoch and its essays testify to Murdoch’s
multi-dimensionality by analyzing diverse aspects of her thinking. In
their essays, the contributors draw upon her philosophy, politics, novels,
letters and the annotation of the books in her library. They are experts in
their fields and they bring differing perspectives to bear upon Murdoch’s
thought. Initially they took part in an enjoyable conference on Murdoch
that was staged at the Ashmoelan Museum, Oxford, in 2015. Subsequently
they have responded to the various demands that have arisen at succeed-
ing stages of this project. They have expanded or contracted their essays
and addressed common aspects of style. They have done all this with a
lightness of spirit that has made my task as editor a relatively pleasant
one.
The Conference in Oxford in 2015 was enjoyable. I can recall partici-
pants smiling and laughing as well as concentrating and analyzing aspects
of Murdoch’s thought. At the conference, Christiana Payne and Stephen
Mulhall participated in a lively opening roundtable and Miles Leeson
v
vi Preface
and Alison Denham presented papers, which combined to stimulate dis-
cussion and reflection. The paper givers and the wider audience all rein-
forced my convictions that Iris Murdoch has much to say that is
provocative and thoughtful and that the Murdoch world is a happy and
engaging one. Murdoch’s novels and philosophy reflect a thoughtfulness
and originality that are rare in their fields.
Other people who have helped this project along are Jude Barrett of
the Ashmolean Museum, April James and Brendan George at Palgrave
Macmillan, Katie Giles, the Archivist at Kingston University and
Constantine Sandis who has been a wise and enabling series editor. I
would also like to thank Nick and Andy who have been thoughtful and
helpful throughout the process of delivering this book. My wife Raia has
been enormously supportive on this project and on others. She has
responded to my reading of Murdoch in considered and productive ways.
She herself read Murdoch at a formative age and her thinking on Murdoch
is sensitive, sound and flexible. She has listened patiently and critically to
my ideas. She reinforces my sense that Iris Murdoch is a thinker who
matters. Scott and Susan, our American friends, took part in a terrific
reading group that had spirited sessions on Nuns and Soldiers, The Sacred
and Profane Love Machine and A Fairly Honourable Defeat. My daughter
Eleanor has been a caring and loving support over some difficult years.
She shows how members of a family matter in ways that go beyond what
we can say and can help one another in all sorts of ways. She is a wonder-
ful mother of three children, Isaac, Annie and Theodore, whose boister-
ous good-natured enthusiasm for all kinds of things helps keep one going
when the words of a scholarly piece of work run dry. My son Conal did
not read Murdoch but if he had done so he would have liked her, and I
hope he would have not disapproved of this book.
Oxford, UK Gray Browning
Contents
Introduction: Interpreting Murdoch—Truth and Love
Revisited 1
Gary Browning
‘The best moralists are the most satanic’: Iris Murdoch—On
Art and Life 21
Anne Rowe
Iris Murdoch and the Quality of Consciousness 43
Sabina Lovibond
Constrained by Reason, Transformed by Love: Murdoch
on the Standard of Proof 63
Carla Bagnoli
Love and Knowledge in Murdoch 89
Sophie-Grace Chappell
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viii Contents
‘Taking the Linguistic Method Seriously’: On Iris Murdoch
on Language and Linguistic Philosophy 109
Niklas Forsberg
Murdoch and the End of Ideology 133
Gary Browning
‘Liberation Through Art’: Form and Transformation
in Murdoch’s Fiction 159
Rebecca Moden
‘It’s like brown, it’s not in the spectrum’: The Problem
of Justice in Iris Murdoch’s Thought 183
Frances White
Index 211
Notes on Contributors
Carla Bagnoli is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Modena, and
Professor II at the University of Oslo. She previously taught at the University of
Wisconsin as tenured Professor and she has held visiting positions at Harvard
University, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, and at the Ecole Normale
Supérieure Lyon. In addition to articles in metaethics and moral psychology,
Bagnoli has published three monographs on moral dilemmas, the authority of
morality, and responsibility in Italian. She is also the editor of Morality and the
Emotions (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Constructivism in Ethics
(Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Gary Browning is Professor of Political Thought and Associate Dean for
Research and Knowledge Exchange at Oxford Brookes University. He is the
author of Why Iris Murdoch Matters (Bloomsbury, 2018), A History of Modern
Political Thought: The Question of Interpretation (Oxford University Press, 2016),
Global Theory From Kant to Hardt and Negri (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),
Critical and Post-Critical Political Economy (with Andy Kilmister) (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006), Rethinking R. G. Collingwood: Philosophy, Politics and the
Unity of Theory and Practice (2004), Lyotard and the End of Grand Narratives
(UWP, 2000), Hegel and the History of Political Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan,
1999) and Plato and Hegel: Two Modes of Philosophizing About Politics (Garland,
1991).
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