Iris Murdoch and the Art of Imagining offers a new appreciation of Iris Murdoch’s philosophy, emphasising the importance of images and the imagination for her thought.

This book is first and foremost a study of Iris Murdoch’s philosophical work. It examines how literature and imagination enabled Murdoch to form a philosophical response to the decline of religion. It thus argues that Murdoch is an important philosopher, because she has not confined herself to philosophy. The book also reconsiders various contemporary assumptions about what philosophy is and does. Through Le Doeuff’s notion of the philosophical imaginary, it examines the different ways in which images and imagination are part of philosophy.

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Philosophy and Its Imagery

3. Literature, Character, and Philosophy

4. Imagination

5. Morality, Religion, and the Ontological Proof

Coda: Women and Philosophy

Notes