FILOSOFE: Iris Murdoch (Carla Bagnoli)

"Perché ci occupiamo di filosofia morale?" si chiedeva Iris Murdoch nel 1956. In questo scritto illustro il significato della domanda e in che senso non riguardi solo la tribù dei filosofi morali, mostro la sua urgenza anche per noi e tratteggio il modo in cui Murdoch vi rispondeva.

Una filosofia morale dovrebbe essere abitata. Iris Murdoch 1 Noi eravamo interessati al linguaggio morale, [Iris Murdoch] era interessata alla vita morale. […] Alla fine ci ha lasciato. Philippa Foot 2

2014

"Etica & Politica. Ethics & Politics", XVI / 1 (2014), pp. 333-392. [on line review: http://www2.units.it/etica/ ], 2014

My paper aims at reconstructing the way – still fertile and up-to-date – in which Murdoch, at the beginning of her career, conceived and practiced moral philosophy. First of all, the research in moral philosophy is devoted to a clarification of the nature of moral life: at this level, Murdoch takes position against the fact-value dichotomy, affirms our original involvement with the good and illustrates the role of imagination. Secondly, the moral philosopher explores the forms assumed by practical life in the present time: to put in order this exploration, a fundamental concept is that of social imagery. Finally, moral philosophy takes part in the symbolic conflict oriented to an understanding of the good, and enriches it by courageously forging new representations and new ethical concepts.

La pratica dello sci, dalle origini alla nascita dello sport moderno. Il caso russo, 2023

L'articolo tratta della storia dello sci, dalle sue origini, sino al momento in cui - da strumento originariamente utilizzato per la caccia, l'allevamento e a fini militari - diviene un mezzo per il loisir. Ci si sofferma sul caso russo, e sulla nascita delle prime organizzazioni sportive sciistiche, nel contesto del momento in cui il movimento sportivo moderno ebbe la sua genesi.

Iride. Philosophy and Public Discussion , 2017

The article aims to explore Iris Murdoch’s perspective on the relationship between philosophical reflection and moral experience. This relationship is considered with reference to the idea of the «loss of concepts», in order to show how Murdoch sheds light on issues involved in philosophical conceptions of the moral life, such as the possibility to make ordinary experiences intelligible or unintelligible. Murdoch’s perspective is analysed, on the one hand, in relation to philosophical method and, on the other hand, considering the kind of cultural criticism she elaborates. In this context, links between Murdoch’s thought and feminist perspectives on ethics are evoked.

Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, XVI, 2014, 1, pp. 426-440

The purpose of this paper is to highlight that the word ‘realism’ has a complex status in Iris Murdoch’s thought, since it refers to different (while converging) meanings: a metaethical thesis, a methodological practice and an existential position which is surprisingly analogous to that phenomenologically described in C.S. Lewis’s work A Grief Observed. I have therefore three tasks: i) giving and account of the debate on moral realism as a metaethical theory in Iris Murdoch; ii) analyzing her ‘methodological’ and ‘existential’ realism; iii) showing the symmetries among Murdoch’s existential realism and C.S. Lewis’s one

2011

The philosophical work of Iris Murdoch, although not so extensive, cannot be easily grasped through usual classifications. Here we suggest approaching it from the perspective of Moore’s thesis on the indefinable nature of good that she endorsed after having re-examined it. This comparison with Moore, however, is part of a more general and deeper investigation on the platonic Idea of the Good itself. Thus, after having analyzed how Murdoch understood and assessed the transition from Moore’s conception to the contemporary framework shared by emotivism and R. Hare’s prescriptivism, we clarify the idea of the sovereignty of good by emphasizing the following three aspects: the link between the realm of good and the authority of truth; the unifying power of the idea of good, in regard to reality as we experience it in our lives; lastly, the way in which this idea enables us to transcend the limits of our inherited theoretical horizons, thus revealing the true nature of human freedom

Università della Calabria - Arcavata di Rende (CS)

I QUADERNI DEL RAMO D’ORO ON-LINE, Numero Speciale (2019), pp. 69-93 (Atti del Convegno "Alla ricerca del mito Perduto", Siena 2018), 2019

La figura di Melanippe presenta caratteristiche tipiche della donna filosofa; attraverso una panoramica ragionata del ruolo della donna nella filosofia greca, si metterano in luce le peculiarità di questo archetipo mitico nella tragedia euripidea Melanippe Sophè.