Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)

Gary Browning tells us why Iris Murdoch stands out as a twentieth-century thinker.

- Gary Browning

Iris Murdoch matters for many reasons. She was an outstanding intellectual figure of the twentieth century, whose work makes sense of modernity and the history of her times. She set out an original philosophy which offered a new perspective on morals and metaphysics. She also wrote imaginative, interesting and fun novels. What makes her compelling is that her fiction and philosophy do not stand apart as discrete achievements: her novels deal imaginatively with themes and issues that characterise her philosophy, and her philosophy explains how art is to be understood.

Both her novels and her philosophy drew upon her own lived experience and reflect back upon it. Murdoch was a woman of diverse interests and skills, but she put them together to engage with the major questions and issues of her age. She was acutely aware of the processes of secularisation that were taking place in the second half of the twentieth century. The old dogmas of religion, a priori reasoning in metaphysics, and absolutist moral principles and political ideologies, were receding. Humanity was turning towards relying upon natural science and its technological applications and emphasising the freedom of individuals. Murdoch recognised that the freedom and scientific tenor of the modern age could not be abandoned, but against the current of her age, she aimed to revive the metaphysical spirit of Platonism and Plato’s call for reaching and acting in the light of a transcendent notion of the Good.

Early Years