Summer Series No.9a - The Idea of Perfection by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch — The Idea of Perfection Wed 16 Sept Novelist Iris Murdoch was also one of the leading 20th century moral philosophers writing in English. Her reading of Sartre, Heidegger, Derrida and other "continental" philosophers encouraged her to break with the Oxford-based analytical/linguistic philosophical orthodoxy of her time, and create a distinctive school of thought that combined the ideas of Plato, Kant, Simone Weil and the existentialists with a respect for both Christian and Hindu religious tradition. Her 1970 collection The Sovereignty of Good contains three essays, of which this is the first. She develops an account of the self, of moral agency and moral reality that's a response to and pushes back on what she calls the existentialist-behaviourist model of ethics. Who are we? We're a reading group that welcomes all - young, old, completely new to philosophy or well versed, from keen students to those who've never darkened the door of a lecture room. We read both long & short texts, but you don't need to join at the very start of our longer reads - you can come along at any stage of the journey. Our conversations are lively, wide-ranging & respectful. We usually head to the pub to continue the discussion after our meetings.