Melvourne talks about the idea that it's the fat, relentless ego which stops us from seeing other people for who they are. She thinks that we're apt to construct our own worlds, and that gets in the way of our seeing others properly. The idea that you have characters who can't see other people because they're wrapped up in their own erotic pantasies is a really important part of her philosophy. next week we'll be discussing corals.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999). In her lifetime she was most celebrated for her novels such as The Bell and The Black Prince, but these are now sharing the spotlight with her philosophy. Responding to the horrors of the Second World War, she argued that morality was not subjective or a matter of taste, as many of her contemporaries held, but was objective, and good was a fact we could recognize. To tell good from bad, though, we would need to see the world as it really is, not as we want to see it, and her novels are full of characters who are not yet enlightened enough to do that.
With
Anil Gomes
Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, University of Oxford
Anne Rowe
Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester and Emeritus Research Fellow with the Iris Murdoch Archive Project at Kingston University
And
Miles Leeson
Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre and Reader in English Literature at the University of Chichester
Producer: Simon Tillotson