Table of Contents

Conceptions of unity.art; fact and value; Schopenhauer; art and religion; comic and tragic; consciousness and thought - I; Derrida and structulism; consciousness and thought - II; Wittgenstein and the inner life; notes on will and duty; imagination; morals and politics; the ontological proof; Descartes and Kant; Martin Buber and God; morality and religion; axioms, duties, eros; void; metaphysics - a summary.

About the Author

Iris Murdoch(1919-1999) was born in Dublin and brought up in London. She studied philosophy at Cambridge and was a philosophy fellow at St. Anne's College for 20 years. She published her first novel in 1954 and was instantly recognized as a major talent. She went on to publish more than 26 novels, as well as works of philosophy, plays, and poetry.

Reviews

"Remarkable—Iris Murdoch has once again put us all in her debt." —The New York Times Book Review 

"Anyone who has even the slightest interest in philosophical matters will find Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals an utterly absorbing book." —The Wall Street Journal 

"Lively, witty, and spellbinding, written by a sleuth on the trail of the meaning of Life." —Peter Mullen, The Daily Mail

"Sets you daydreaming, captivates with a stream of thought, empowers with reminiscences." —London Review of Books 

"Gripping . . . Iris Murdoch has written a book which concerns all of us as human beings . . . There are pages here that one wants to embrace her for, pages that say things of fundamental human importance in a way that they have never quite been said before." —Noel Malcolm, The Sunday Telegraph

"Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals is a prodigious roller coaster of a book, a journey through philosophy, religion, literature, art—less a guide than a gigantic survey, a mapping, providing readers with the means to find their own ways . . . I know of no other writer who could have covered such large areas with such authority, nor had the courage to treat fashion with such disdain." —Nicholas Mosley, The Daily Telegraph

"A large, elaborate and visionary philosophical essay . . . richly stimulating . . . this is a significant book, lambent with insights, intelligence, and profound concern." —A. C. Grayling, The Financial Times 

"Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals is really a much needed Guide to Life. 'Good is the reality of which God is the dream' is a line of simple beauty, distilling philosophical insight into purest poetry." —Josephine Hart, The Sunday Express

"It is a great congested work, a foaming sourcebook, about life, imagination, tragedy, philosophy, morality, religion, and art." —Galen Strawson, The Independent on Sunday 

The most conspicuous citizens of our epoch, according to Murdoch, are ``demonic individuals,'' egoistic go-getters in pursuit of money, fame, power and sex. The English novelist-philosopher sketches a new morality that would end the compartmentalization of public from private, work from pleasure and aesthetic from ethical concerns. Plato's view of the cosmos, as Murdoch interprets it, speaks to our age and can help us forge a religion without a personal God. Religion should be ``demythologized,'' she urges, adding that religious thinking ought to incorporate the transcendental experiences of mystics, artists and poets. This dense, demanding treatise engages the ideas of Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Simone Weil, Nietzsche, Jung and structuralists. For diligent readers, it presents many riches as Murdoch ranges from Shakespearean tragedy to Martin Buber's philosophy and the nature of imagination. (Jan.)

"Remarkable-Iris Murdoch has once again put us all in her debt." -The New York Times Book Review

"Anyone who has even the slightest interest in philosophical matters will find Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals an utterly absorbing book." -The Wall Street Journal

"Lively, witty, and spellbinding, written by a sleuth on the trail of the meaning of Life." -Peter Mullen, The Daily Mail

"Sets you daydreaming, captivates with a stream of thought, empowers with reminiscences." -London Review of Books

"Gripping . . . Iris Murdoch has written a book which concerns all of us as human beings . . . There are pages here that one wants to embrace her for, pages that say things of fundamental human importance in a way that they have never quite been said before." -Noel Malcolm, The Sunday Telegraph

"Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals is a prodigious roller coaster of a book, a journey through philosophy, religion, literature, art-less a guide than a gigantic survey, a mapping, providing readers with the means to find their own ways . . . I know of no other writer who could have covered such large areas with such authority, nor had the courage to treat fashion with such disdain." -Nicholas Mosley, The Daily Telegraph

"A large, elaborate and visionary philosophical essay . . . richly stimulating . . . this is a significant book, lambent with insights, intelligence, and profound concern." -A. C. Grayling, The Financial Times

"Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals is really a much needed Guide to Life. 'Good is the reality of which God is the dream' is a line of simple beauty, distilling philosophical insight into purest poetry." -Josephine Hart, The Sunday Express

"It is a great congested work, a foaming sourcebook, about life, imagination, tragedy, philosophy, morality, religion, and art." -Galen Strawson, The Independent on Sunday