Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel

Lyra Ekström Lindbäck is an award winning Swedish novelist. Her book, whose project is argued for with the conceptual clarity that is philosophical in orientation, seeks to establish why literature and philosophy need to be held apart. This is both an astounding and important work. Lindbäck has stepped outside the realm of the novel to establish the novel’s significance. Centred on the writings of Iris Murdoch she uncovers at the heart of Murdoch's works a literary undertaking which, while having a relation to philosophy, is nonetheless always distanced from it. Literature can present differing worlds precisely because it can maintain its distance from conceptual determination. To have such a book by a writer of the significance of Lindbäck is as important to philosophy as it will be to literature. -- Andrew Benjamin * Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Monash University, Australia * Lindback's Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel: Why Literature Is Not Philosophy reconsiders the central question at the heart of Murdoch studies: how far, and to what extent does Murdoch literature and philosophy interact, and should they be consider distinct modes of thought? This book provides a crucial intervention in the field to insist on their separateness, as well as bringing a variety of philosophical voices to bear on the debate which, through Lindback's careful discussion, becomes more wide-ranging and necessary. An essential work for those working in Murdoch studies, and in interdisciplinary studies more widely. -- Miles Leeson * Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre, Reader in English Literature, University of Chichester, UK * A bold and beautifully written work of scholarship. Taking Iris Murdoch as her guide, Lindbäck vigorously defends the idea that literature and philosophy are fundamentally different enterprises and helps us to see why this is a good thing for philosophy and for literature. Through subtle expositions of Kant, Plato, Hegel and a host of other thinkers, she shows how literature can be deeply meaningful and occasionally revelatory without being essentially about, or for, the furthering of understanding. A prominent trend in Murdoch scholarship reads Murdoch’s novels as an extension of her philosophy despite Murdoch’s repudiation of this idea. In illuminating contrast, Lindbäck appeals to Murdoch’s novels to remind us of what it is normally like to enter into a literary work of art—how sensuous, immersive and pleasurable the experience, how very different from what we experience when engaged in conceptual clarification. This is an exceptionally engaging book that perhaps only a novelist who is also a philosopher could have written. Anyone and everyone with an interest in the relationship between philosophy and literature, the nature of aesthetic experience, or the writings of Iris Murdoch should read it. -- Bridget Clarke * Professor of Philosophy, University of Montana, USA * Lyra Ekström Lindbäck gives us a fresh and lively take on an ancient quarrel, showing its interest and importance for philosophers, literary theorists, Murdoch scholars and writers -- and indeed anyone who wants to be left alone to enjoy a good novel without the instrumental aim of being morally improved. Taking Plato and Iris Murdoch as her allies, Lindbäck’s explanation of why literature is not philosophy is also a case against the ‘literary turn’ in moral philosophy and a passionate plea to recognise our ambiguous, muddled, dangerous, joyful, sensory and radically non-instrumental relation to art. -- Rachel Wiseman * Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Liverpool, UK *