ABSTRACT
Iris Murdoch’s new book is based on the 1982 Gifford lectures, the prestigious Scottish lecture series endowed, in the nineteenth century, by the will of Lord Gifford. Iris Murdoch is sympathetic to many different kinds of schools, and is herself, qua philosopher, a woman with a split personality. In one mood she likes to come down to earth, get down to detail and engage with particularities, almost, but not quite in the manner of an Oxford ‘analyst’. In another mood she prefers to draw comprehensive comparisons between very disparate writers and theories. In answer to moral scepticism, Iris Murdoch asserts that ‘levels and modes of understanding are also levels and modes of existence’. The demonstration of the validity of moral thinking is partly empirical and partly transcendental. It is empirical in so far as it rests on evidence, evidence which shows that art works and value judgements make massive appearances in all self-expression and in every day of human life.
