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Murdoch on Truth and Love pp 1–20Cite as

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Introduction: Interpreting Murdoch—Truth and Love Revisited

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Part of the book series: Philosophers in Depth ((PID))

Abstract

This introduction recognises the breadth of Iris Murdoch’s thought. Murdoch was a prolific and dynamic thinker, who held expertise and interest in a number of areas including philosophy, politics, morality, art and literature. Her philosophical writings, novels and letters are of significance in conveying her thought on a variety of subjects. The various essays that compose this volume are seen as responding to the breadth of Murdoch’s thinking and also as dealing with the paradoxes that arise out of her concern to trace connections between distinct aspects of experience. The essays of the volume are described and shown to fit together. The Introduction ends by indicating how Murdoch’s late engagement with Heidegger reflects her concern to develop a unified sense of experience.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a reading of Plato that does not see him as otherworldly and at the same time questions whether he has a settled set of doctrines see my own work on Plato and Hegel (Browning 1991).

  2. 2.

    See R. Nettleship (1922), W.D. D. Ross (1976) and H. Lloyd-Jones (1983) and Plato (1961a, b, c, d, e).

  3. 3.

    F. White (2010) provides a concentrated and interesting comparison of Murdoch and Arendt.

  4. 4.

    See my book, Browning (2018), where I argue for the merits of Murdoch as a metaphysician and see the crucial role of the ‘Manuscript on Heidegger’ in conveying her metaphysics. Note that Murdoch prepared the ‘Manuscript on Heidegger’ for publication in 1993 but she decided against publication. The opening section of the Manuscript was published in J. Boakes (2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    Gary Browning

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  1. Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Gary Browning

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Browning, G. (2018). Introduction: Interpreting Murdoch—Truth and Love Revisited. In: Browning, G. (eds) Murdoch on Truth and Love. Philosophers in Depth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76216-6_1

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