Historical Arguments in Iris Murdoch’s Early Writings on Aesthetics

Description

Throughout her early writings Iris Murdoch presents a series of arguments that can be called ‘historical’ or ‘genealogical’. In this paper we outline the basic workings of these arguments and suggest that their modus of operation, and consequently their conditions of validity, differ considerably from common typologies of similar historical arguments gathered from resent studies, and that, consequently, these typologies are in need of revision. We further suggest that Murdoch’s style of argument does not fall prey to anything like the so-called ‘genetic fallacy’ or a number of other mistakes that are sometimes thought to plague historical argumentative structures due to Murdoch’s commitment to a form of metaphysical theorizing developed together with her friends and colleagues in the so-called ‘Somerville School’.

Period	2020 Mar 12
Held at	Practical Philosophy
Degree of Recognition	International