Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (Penguin Philosophy)

Murdoch, Iris; Iris Murdoch

ISBN 10: 0140172327 / ISBN 13: 9780140172324

Published by Penguin Philosophy/Penguin Books/Published by the Penguin Group, London, New York, et al., 1993

About this Item

520 pp. Nearly flawless copy with minimal external wear, crisp pages and clean text. Synopsis: This guide to morals is the culmination of the author's lifetime of work in philosophy. The author is concerned with the humanistic part of the history of philosophy, Plato to structuralism, and how it bears on our thoughts and feelings about our lives, our moral lives. She shows how our conception of morality is bound up with and in our worlds, not separate from them, not values separated from facts. More particularly, the subject in its first part includes consciousness, the nature of reality, the self-freedom. In its second part the subject is a conception of morality as somehow bound up with and in our worlds, not separate from them, not values separated from facts. This enterprise of the book, and its title, recall Kant's great groundwork of metaphysic morals. It is not philosophy of any of the dominant kinds in the English language its subject-matter is grander and more elusive, and it is much more literary, allusive, historical and spiritual. There are also extended commentaries on particular philosophers, including Schopenhauer, as well as a section on art, and some reflections on the novel, none of them personal or about the author's novels.

Seller Inventory # 5iAb0031

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (Penguin Philosophy)
• Publisher: Penguin Philosophy/Penguin Books/Published by the Penguin Group, London, New York, et al.
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140172327
• ISBN 13: 9780140172324
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Metaphysics
  • Academic, Scholarly, Research
  • Philosophy

About this title

Synopsis

The decline of religion and ever increasing influence of science pose acute ethical issues for us all. Can we reject the literal truth of the Gospels yet still retain a Christian morality? Can we defend any 'moral values' against the constant encroachments of technology? Indeed, are we in danger of losing most of the qualities which make us truly human? Here, drawing on a novelist's insight into art, literature and abnormal psychology, Iris Murdoch conducts an ongoing debate with major writers, thinkers and theologians—from Augustine to Wittgenstein, Shakespeare to Sartre, Plato to Derrida—to provide fresh and compelling answers to these crucial questions.

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.