Book description

Iris Murdoch was a philosopher and novelist of extraordinary breadth and originality whose work defies simple categorisation. Her philosophical writing engages with an astonishingly wide range of figures, from Plato and Kant to Sartre and Heidegger, and her work increasingly inspires debate in ethics, aesthetics, religion, and literature.

The Murdochian Mind is an outstanding reference source to the full span of Murdoch's philosophical work, comprising 37 specially commissioned chapters written by an international team of leading scholars. Divided into five clear parts, the volume covers the following areas:

• A guide to Murdoch's key philosophical texts, including The Sovereignty of Good and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.



• Core themes and concepts in Murdoch's philosophy, such as love, moral vision, and attention.



• Murdoch's engagement with the history of philosophy, including Plato, Kant, Hegel, Simone Weil, and Wittgenstein.



• Interdisciplinary connections with art, literature, and religion, including Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity.



• Murdoch and contemporary philosophical debates, including feminism, virtue ethics, and metaethics.



• The application of Murdoch’s thought to applied ethics, including animal ethics, psychiatric ethics, and the environment.

Although recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in Murdoch’s philosophy, The Murdochian Mind is the first volume to do justice to the incredibly rich and wide-ranging nature of her work. As such it will be of great interest to students of philosophy, especially ethics and aesthetics, as well as those in related disciplines such as literature, religion, and gender studies.

Table of contents