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Course Description

Summary

Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was a provocative and profoundly original thinker whose significance for contemporary philosophy is still being processed and absorbed today. Her work engages a wide range of topics, including art and religion, morals and politics, metaphysics and mysticism, the nature of the imagination, and the nature of the self. In this course, we will engage with significant portions of Murdoch’s work, aiming to achieve an overall understanding of the challenging positions she developed over the course of her career as both a philosopher and a novelist. Possible topics of discussion include: the relation between human identity and ideas of the good; the role of knowledge and emotion in the moral life; the distinction (or lack thereof) between facts and values; the effect of modern critiques of religion on moral life and thought; and the relation between ethics and literature.