Philosophers’ FAQ - Philosophy by Postcard

"Murdoch raises important questions about the way in which art might help us to experience things beyond ourselves including those things that others might have experienced that we have not. She also suggests that art might assist us to understand another person’s ethical view. I am particularly drawn to Murdoch's exploration of the interconnection between art and ethical life or the nature of goodness and her account of attention in regard to the perception of others."

Danielle Petherbridge

"Iris Murdoch had been my teacher. I never met her, but I have been learning from her ever since I first started reading Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, some twenty years ago. This is a book written by a great mind, someone with whom I share a love for Plato, Kant and great literature, as well as concern about the disappearance of religious experience. Above all, Murdoch has taught me to persist with a problem, however unfashionable."

Hannah Marije Altorf

"My working time with Iris Murdoch has been spent mainly with 'Vision and Choice in Morality' - that substantive content gets sneaked into or shut out of philosophy by the demands of mere 'form' is still a fertile idea - or with The Sovereignty of Good. How the capacity to love a particular other well relates (or fails to) to goodness more broadly is a constant theme of mine. I also love the novels, not least for the hijacking (if it is really that) of philosophical language to describe everyday affairs."

Edward Harcourt

"Iris Murdoch has, over and over again, and in many different ways, opened up what moral philosophy can be. I think, for example, of the way she has emphasized the importance of not working with a a narrow delineation of what constitutes moral philosophy, a delineation which can exclude much that matters in moral life. I think also of the importance in her work of what is true to our experience as moral beings, and what in philosophy can distort that experience."

Cora Diamond

"I first discovered Murdoch at age 13 when I went on a reading spree of all her novels whilst on summer holidays at Lake Superior in northern Ontario – some distance from the intrigues of the British middle classes captured by Murdoch. Years later as a political philosopher at Queen’s University I read her 1958 essay, ‘A House of Theory’. I am still amazed at how this piece, written during the Cold War, offers an eloquent vision of fulfilling work in a community of equals that speaks to us still."

Christine Sypnowich

"I have come across Iris Murdoch as part of the Wartime Quartet. What I like about her is the way in which she unites philosophy and literature in her person, and how her thinking allows to oppose mainstream moral philosophy. I am inspired by her idea of and emphasis on moral vision, and by her attention to detail and context. As something like an ex-Platonist, I am not so sure that I can bring myself to be convinced by all of her mature moral philosophy, but I remain certainly fascinated."

Mara-Daria Cojocaru

"Murdoch showed that you have to be fearless, rigorous, and creative to illuminate the moral possibilities of everyday life and to address (what she called) "the real problems." She showed that you don't have to look to a faraway place to experience or to examine transcendence; it is a part of ordinary human life. She showed, and continues to show, how to reflect on moral questions in a way that is both good-humored and uncompromising."

Bridget Clarke

"Iris Murdoch taught me that philosophy can be serious and severe but still emotionally sustaining. Her writing showed me that philosophical prose can still be beautiful. She enlarged my sense of what philosophy can be. 'To do philosophy is to explore one's own temperament,' Murdoch wrote, 'and yet at the same time to attempt to discover the truth.'

Kieran Setiya

"I find Iris Murdoch's philosophy enormously rich and imaginative, and driven by a pressing wish to understand human life in all its fullness, complexity, and variegation. Engaging with Murdoch's philosophy opens up exhilarating vistas of what it is to do philosophy, and what it is to be human."

Ana Barandalla

"She wrote: 'Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality.'

Could this be right? And if so how, more exactly, should we understand it? And how should we live in the light of that understanding? Murdoch is someone who, in her novels, her philosophy and her life, makes the interest and importance of these issues vividly apparent!"

Jane Heal

"One idea from Murdoch that really interests me is her concept of 'attention', as involving a kind of focus beyond the self and on the detail of the world, including other people. I think Murdoch displays this attention herself in the way she does philosophy, which saves her from an overly theoretical and reductive approach, and brings her close to some thinkers in the phenomenological tradition, in a way that I find attractive - and it makes her more enjoyable to read than most philosophers!"

Robert Stern

"Iris's is philosophy with a human side, complex, mixed, multifaceted, not altogether good, not altogether bad, without too-sharp boundaries -- life as I experience and must manage it."

Nancy Cartwright

"Murdoch's philosophy, like her fiction, is populated with the varied reality of moral life: mothers who find their daughters-in-law juvenile, concentration camp guards who are kindly fathers. A loving gaze can discern this moral reality just as a good eye can appraise the length of a timber. And if we are to transcend our selfish egos, we need this capacity for loving attention. Murdoch’s work remains a provocation, where goodness is real, and love is seeing aright."

Anil Gomes

"What Murdoch means to me: The first time I read Murdoch's philosophy, I was completely baffled by it. But pretty soon afterwards, I found myself picking it up again, and then again. Her work can be obscure, but it's rich and often powerfully written, and it somehow resonates with me. Reading Murdoch, you really feel the pull of her vision. On each new read, I find myself noticing wonderful throw-away lines that give me plenty to ponder, and that will certainly lead me to return to her work once more."

Cathy Mason

1. What happens next?

Find out more about the process and the timeline here.

2. What will I be expected to write on a postcard?

We don't know what people will send in. As a philosopher respondent it will be up to you to identify the philosophical issues and questions that the postcard raises and respond to them in your own way. If you're able to channel the spirit of Murdoch we'll be delighted, but your own honest philosophical response is what we're really after.

3. Will my address be shared?

No - only we will know your address. We will forward a postcard from the public to you along with a stamped addressed envelope. When you've written your reply just post it back to us. We will add a stamp and the address of the sender and send it on to them.

4. When will I receive a postcard from the public and how long will I have to answer it?

You will receive the postcard in the post by 15th October 2019, along with a blank postcard on which to write your answer and a stamped addressed envelope in which to return it. Replies must be posted by 1st January 2020.

5. What will happen to my reply?

We will photograph your reply before sending your postcard on to its addressee. After all the original senders have received their reply in the post, we will pair questions with answers on the website and will link your answer to your profile. Later, we may contact you to ask about other uses for your postcard - for example in a publication - but you are welcome to decline.

6. What if my details change?

Use the change of details form here to let us know.

7. What if I can't participate any more?

Please let us know as soon as possible. And if you can find a replacement philosopher postcard writer that would be a great help.

8. What more can I do?

As much or as little as you like! Follow us on twitter @parenthesis_in, share the website, set up your post-card writing workshops locally, do more #philosophybypostcard #slowphilosophy.

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