'Beyond glass doors... the sun no longer shining' : English platonism and the problem of self-love in the literary and philosophical work of Iris Murdoch.

Abstract

Certain oddities of Iris Murdoch's Platonism have a significance beyond that of being the personal and idiosyncratic opinion of one author, of interest only to Murdoch enthusiasts. First of all, they provide richly suggestive indications of what can happen to Platonism when it is brought into interaction with a mechanical and deterministic model of the physical universe. Secondly, Murdoch's work acts as a particularly perspicuous theological flash-point, showing the intrinsic difficulties with combining demanding features of Platonism with a strong sense of human selfishness (self-love) and imperfectibility. This is illuminated through a comparison with a strand of neo-Lutheran theology.