Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel

Lyra Ekström Lindbäck is a novelist and critic.

• Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1. The Ancient Quarrel: A Background Story 2. What Is (Not) A Philosophical Novel? The Sensory Illusion of Sense 3. The Feel of Muddled Thinking: Conceptual content in literature following Kant’s aesthetics 4. Real Characters and Fictional People: Stanley Cavell and the Epistemology of Fiction 5. Problems Purged: The Consolations of Tragedy 6. Playing with Fire: The Immorality of Literature Concluding remarks Bibliography Index

Lyra Ekström Lindbäck is an award winning Swedish novelist. Her book, whose project is argued for with the conceptual clarity that is philosophical in orientation, seeks to establish why literature and philosophy need to be held apart. This is both an astounding and important work. Lindbäck has stepped outside the realm of the novel to establish the novel’s significance. Centred on the writings of Iris Murdoch she uncovers at the heart of Murdoch's works a literary undertaking which, while having a relation to philosophy, is nonetheless always distanced from it. Literature can present differing worlds precisely because it can maintain its distance from conceptual determination. To have such a book by a writer of the significance of Lindbäck is as important to philosophy as it will be to literature.