This book reviews Iris Murdoch’s thought as a whole. It surveys the breadth of her thinking, taking account of her philosophical works, her novels and her letters. It shows how she explored many aspects of experience and brought together apparently contradictory concepts such as truth and love. The volume deals with her notions of truth, love, language, morality, politics and her life. It shows how she offers a challenging provocative way of seeing things which is related to but distinct from (...) standard forms of analytical philosophy and Continental thought. Unlike so many philosophers she does offer a philosophy to live by and unlike many novelists she has reflected deeply on the kind of novels she aimed to write. The upshot is that her novels and her philosophy can be read together productively as contributions to how we can see others and the world. (shrink)

Hegel sees war as contributing positively to the experience of social and political life. Of course, his support for war is qualified in that the overall aim is to maintain peace and to mitigate the violence and destruc­tion of warfare. Nonetheless Hegel takes individual citizens to appreciate the achievement of social and political life in the light of war, and how the patriotism evidenced in war reinforces their recognition of the freedom and unity of public life. Hegel’s support for war (...) arises in part out of a real­ism that he shares with Hobbes. But he also considers the significance of war on more general philosophical grounds. War, like the life and death struggle between individuals that is set out in the Phenomenology, plays a role in the development of recognition. If the life and death struggle brings out the sociality of recognition, war is a graphic reminder of the social and public operation of freedom. While Hegel’s philosophical justification of war and death make sense in the context of his wider philosophy, his dramatic depiction of death and war tends to supersede the systematic style of his philosophy. It is excessive in a way that is similar to how the figurative language of Hobbes’s Leviathan supersedes Hobbes’s own sense of the limits of language. (shrink)

The use of the category of influence in the history of ideas has been criticized by Skinner for its failure to provide explanatory links between the ideas and theorists it purports to connect and by Condren for its failure to respect the agency of thinkers. Bevir and Collingwood support the notion of influence and argue that it does accommodate the agency of thinkers. The arguments of Condren and Skinner point to significant issues and problems in the practice of the history (...) of ideas but it is argued that these points do not count decisively against employing the notion of influence. The defence of influence by Collingwood and Bevir is seen to need qualification in the light of post-structuralist arguments that challenge the monopoly of meaning that is claimed for authors of texts in the history of ideas. The article concludes by urging that the category of influence is compatible with a nuanced account of agency. (shrink)

In his early writings on logic Collingwood offered a powerful critique of contemporary theories, including subjective idealism and realism to which he continued to be opposed throughout his career. Simultaneously these same early writings present a sustained attack on dichotomous forms of thought, which are also carried through to his later writings. Throughout Collingwood maintains a critical respect for Hegel. Subjectivity and objectivity are not to be severed from each other, nor are identities to be excluded from one another. Continuity (...) is not to be understood apart from discontinuity. Collingwood's early critiques inspire a variety of later doctrines such as the scale of forms, the logic of question and answer, metaphysics as a science of absolute presuppositions, and his conception of the relation between mind and civilisation. The later theories are to be understood as continuous with the earlier doctrines, but not deducible from, nor reducible to them. (shrink)

A lively and engaging collection which explains the various strands of political theory, identifies key futures trends and explores the foundations of contemporary debate. Features interviews with pre-eminent theorists, including Quentin Skinner, Carole Pateman and Alex Honneth."--Publisher's website.

Hegel develops a critical political economy, which is critical because he takes no aspect of the world to be discrete or impervious to revisionary re-reading in the light of its relationship with other spheres. Hence, for Hegel, the modern political economy is not accepted at face value; it is to be criticised in the light of a deeper philosophical reading of social and political developments. Hegel’s philosophy is critical and holistic. Within its perspective, the economy is not detachable from a (...) wider set of social relationships. Hegel accepts that a modern political economy operates for the most part via self-interested utility-maximising behaviour, but he qualifies this acceptance by emphasising the need for wider social and political values and commitments to limit the autonomy of the market and the impact of economic individualism. Hegel highlights the wider web of social relationships within which the economic is situated. In achieving the prime objective of an overall rational organisation of the social world, the economic goals of producing and distributing goods and services are subordinated to the goals of securing an overall harmony between social practices and of establishing ethical relationships between members of a community. Again, for Hegel, political economy does not transcend time, for the modern market economy is part and parcel of the distinctively modern world. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch had a lifelong interest in politics and she reflected upon the nature of ideology throughout her career. What she had to say on the subject developed during her career and relates to general academic discussions on the nature of ideology. At the outset of her career she was a committed socialist. She recognised that political ideology was in retreat after the Second World War but sought to contribute to socialist ideology. Later in her career she became sceptical of (...) radical utopian ideologies, including socialism and developed a theory of politics that prioritised safeguarding individual liberty and security. However, she imagined that political thought would continue to develop and offer new possibilities and so she did not call for the end of ideology but continued to value political ideas. (shrink)

Oakeshott sets out philosophical and historical views of the state. They are distinct, and their distinctiveness harmonizes with his notion of the exclusivity of philosophical and historical perspectives. The modal distinctness of philosophy, history, and practice is established in Experience and Its Modes and is then rehearsed in subsequent publications, notably in essays in Rationalism and Politics. History is a way of seeing the past that is at odds with practical thought and philosophy. It is the sign of ideology, and (...) its misperceptions of the relations between philosophy and practice that ideologists such as Lenin and Thatcher invoke abstractions of communism and the market to frame practical political decision-making. However, in considering art in the essay “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind,” Oakeshott imagines art to be independent of other activities and yet to maintain a conversational relationship between the modes of experience. What is meant by a conversation? For Oakeshott, a conversation does not preclude the independence of modes of experience from one another. The closeness between philosophy, practice, and history is also assumed and yet underplayed by the argument of On Human Conduct, which imagines theory to be separate from history and practice. In this paper, it is argued that the connections between practical, historical, and philosophical modes of understanding the state in Oakeshott’s work are closer than is suggested by the metaphor of conversation and at odds with the separation that is maintained in Experience and its Modes. (shrink)

Hegel and Plato are united as political theorists by the convergence of their philosophical aspirations. But their political writings manifest the general disparities involved in their particular ways of seeking to fulfil these aspirations. Professor Browning compares the political thought of Plato and Hegel by locating their political theorizing within the context of their divergent modes of philosophizing.

Murdoch’s metaphysics attends to different forms of thought and practice, showing connections and differences. She recognises the sheer refractoriness of aspects of experience while tracing intimations of order and aspirations to goodness and moral perfection. In her review of politics and morality in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals she separates and relates the two spheres. She perceives how in personal morality individuals can develop perfectionist goals, but in doing so they rely upon the security that is provided by political (...) order. Politics, for Murdoch, in the wake of the collapse of Marxist regimes in Eastern Europe, is not to be utopian, but rather is to avoid repression and injustice and secure order and justice to safeguard individuals, who, in their personal lives can pursue perfection. (shrink)