Situating Murdoch: Between Interlocutors and Traditions
Workshop
Situating Murdoch: Between Interlocutors and Traditions
School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon
May 6th and 7th 2025
Event organised as part of the activities of Praxis-CFUL
Keynotes
Silvia Caprioglio-Panizza (UPCE/University of Tübingen)
Evgenia Mylonaki (University of Patras)
One of the many features that constitute Iris Murdoch’s philosophical originality is her ability to navigate different authors, problems and systems of thought, always maintaining an independent position. Murdoch learnt differences and plurality in Oxford, where she got exposed to the battle between supporters and detractors of metaphysics and to a shift in dealing with moral questions. From the very beginning, Murdoch was able to stay in touch with contemporary questions in (especially but not only) moral philosophy and to push back resorting to seemingly unusual authors like Plato and Weil. Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992) (MGM henceforth) can be said to be a statement of Murdoch’s philosophical eclecticism. Her last philosophical work weaves together figures and themes that would be deemed quite distant from one another: to mention a few, we find there some connections traced between the spirit behind Wittgenstein’s and Derrida’s accounts of language and the inner life; extensive considerations on Kant, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Buber; and references to liberalism, socialism and exponents of the Frankfurt School. Despite the recent interest in MGM and Murdoch’s intellectual relationships, symbolically signalled by the publication of the anthologies Reading Iris Murdoch’s Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (2019) and The Murdochian Mind (2022), there is still work to be done in mapping out the extension of the connections she traces between authors and traditions. Thus the aim of the present workshop: to further investigate the relations between Murdoch and her interlocutors in order to be able to appreciate her unique philosophical standpoint and to situate it in respect to other philosophical trends.
Programme
| May 6th | |
| 10.00 – 10.15 | Opening remarks |
| 10.15 – 13.00
|
Chair: Erik Lind
10.15 – Lesley Jamieson (University of Pardubice): “From Attention to Care and Back Again: Maternal Thinking about Murdoch” 10.50 – Paolo Babbiotti (University of Turin): “Changing Our Vision: Richard Wollheim and Iris Murdoch” 11.25 – Arnaud Petit (University of Oxford): “Murdoch Perfectionist Vision”
12.00 – 13.00: discussion |
| 13.00 – 15.00 | Lunch break |
| 15.00 – 16.50
|
Chair: Antonio Oraldi
15.00 – Susan Harris (University of Roehampton): ““I am Wittgenstein”. Iris Murdoch’s complex relationship to Ludwig Wittgenstein” 15.35 – Francesca Scapinello (University of Lisbon): “The Threat of Solipsism: Understanding the Net with Iris Murdoch and Susan Stebbing”
16.10 – 16.50: discussion |
| 16.50 – 17.20 | Coffee break |
| 17.20 – 18.50 | Keynote Speaker: Evgenia Mylonaki (University of Patras)
Chair: Ricardo Mendoza-Canales |
| 19.30 | Conference dinner |
| May 7th | |
|
10.15 – 13.00 |
Chair: Maura Ceci
10.15 – Darren Steven Rondganger (Central European University): “Murdoch’s Unrealised Political Philosophy: Reading her through Fanon” 10.50 – Fay Lee (KU Leuven): “Exploring Murdoch’s Platonism” 11.25 – Yanni Ratajczyk (University of Rijeka): “Analysing the Shadows or Escaping the Cave? Freud, Plato, and Murdochian Fantasy”
12.00 – 13.00: discussion |
| 13.00 – 15.00 | Lunch break |
|
15.00 – 16.50 |
Chair: Zach Tailor
15.00 – Tom Whyman (University of Liverpool): “Adorno as Murdoch’s ‘negative image’” 15.35 – Jean-Gabriel You (Sorbonne University): “Murdoch, Moore and Metaethics”
16.10 – 16.50: discussion |
| 16.50 – 17.10 | Coffee break |
| 17.10 – 18.40 | Keynote Speaker: Silvia Caprioglio-Panizza (UPCE/University of Tübingen)
Chair: Francesca Scapinello |
Organisers: Francesca Scapinello (Praxis-CFUL, University of Lisbon), Moirika Reker (Praxis-CFUL, University of Lisbon)