Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and LiteratureBest known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch has also made significant contributions to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch's journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy.Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought. |
Contents
Prologue | 1 |
A Conversation with Bryan Magee | 3 |
Nostalgia for the Particular 195157 | 31 |
Thinking and Language | 33 |
Nostalgia for the Particular | 43 |
Metaphysics and Ethics | 59 |
Vision and Choice in Morality | 76 |
Encountering Existentialism 195059 | 99 |
A House of Theory | 171 |
Mass Might and Myth | 187 |
The Darkness of Practical Reason | 193 |
Towards a Practical Mysticism 195978 | 203 |
The Sublime and the Good | 205 |
Existentialists and Mystics | 221 |
Salvation by Words | 235 |
Art is the Imitation of Nature | 243 |
The Novelist as Metaphysician | 101 |
The Existentialist Hero | 108 |
Outline of a Theory | 116 |
De Beauvoirs The Ethics of Ambiguity | 122 |
The Image of Mind | 125 |
The Existentialist Political Myth | 130 |
Hegel in Modern Dress | 146 |
Existentialist Bite | 151 |
The Need for Theory 195666 | 155 |
Knowing the Void | 157 |
T S Eliot as a Moralist | 161 |
Can Literature Help Cure the Ills of Philosophy? 195961 | 259 |
The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited | 261 |
Against Dryness | 287 |
Rereading Plato 196486 | 297 |
The Idea of Perfection | 299 |
On God and Good | 337 |
The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts | 363 |
Why Plato Banished the Artists | 386 |
A Dialogue about Art | 464 |
A Dialogue about Religion | 496 |
Other editions - View all
Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature Iris Murdoch Limited preview - 1999 |
Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature Iris Murdoch Limited preview - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
ACASTOS action activity ANTAGORAS appears argument artist attempt attention beauty become belief called character choice clear complete concepts concerned connected consciousness consider course criticism describe desire discussion emotion ethics exist existentialist experience explain express fact feel freedom give gods human idea imagination important individual instance interesting judgement Kant kind knowledge language less Liberal literature live logical look MANTIAS Marxism matter mean metaphysical mind moral Murdoch nature never novel object ordinary particular perhaps philosophy picture Plato play political present problem pure question rational reality reason reflection regard relation religion religious Sartre seems sense separate simple situation social society SOCRATES sort soul speak structure suggest tell theory things thought true truth understand universal virtue vision whole writing