Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals was Iris Murdochs major philosophical testament and a highly original and ambitious attempt to talk about our time. Yet in the scholarship on her philosophical work thus far it has often been left in the shade of her earlier work. This volume brings together 16 scholars who offer accessible readings of chapters and themes in the book, connecting them to Murdochs larger oeuvre, as well as to central themes in 20th century and contemporary thought. The essays bring forth the strength, originality, and continuing relevance of Murdochs late thought, addressing, among other matters, her thinking about the Good, the role and nature of metaphysics in the contemporary world, the roles of art in human understanding, questions of unity and plurality in thinking, the possibilities of spiritual life without God, and questions of style and sensibility in intellectual work.
Recenzijos
Reading Iris Murdochs Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals is an intellectually challenging read that offers many profound and detailed interpretations of Murdochs important mature work, invaluable to all interested readers of Murdoch. (Anne Eggert Stevns, Iris Murdoch Review, 2020)
Chapter One: Introduction .
Chapter Two: The Gifford-driven genesis and
subliminal stylistic construction of Metaphysics as a guide to morals.-
Chapter Three: Unity and art in a mood of scepticism (MGM
Chapter 1).-
Chapter Four: Murdochs question of the work of art: the dialogue between
Western and Japanese conceptions of unity (MGM
Chapters 1 & 8).
Chapter
Five: Fact and value (MGM
Chapter 2).
Chapter Six: Schopenhauer and the
mystical solution of the riddle (MGM
Chapter 3).
Chapter Seven: Metaphysics
as a guide to morals: The debate between literature and philosophy.
Chapter
Eight: Disciplines of attention: Iris Murdoch on consciousness, criticism,
and thought (MGM
Chapters 6-8).
Chapter Nine: Iris Murdoch as educator.-
Chapter Ten: I think I disagree: Murdoch on Wittgenstein and inner life
(MGM
Chapter 17).
Chapter Eleven: We are fantasising imaginative animals
(MGM
Chapter 11).-Chapter Twelve: The metaphysics of morals and politics (MGM
Chapter 12).
Chapter Thirteen: Iris Murdochs ontological argument (MGM
Chapter 13).
Chapter Fourteen: Vision and encounter in moral thinking (MGM
Chapter 15).
Chapter Fifteen: The urge to write: Of Murdoch on Platos
Demiurge.
Chapter Sixteen: Fields of force: Murdoch on axioms, duties, and
Eros (MGM
Chapter 17).
Chapter Seventeen: Which void? (MGM
Chapter 18).
Nora Hämäläinen is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Ethics, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic.
Gillian Dooley is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Flinders University in South Australia.
