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“Between Perception and Action”: Iris Murdoch on Imagination

In this paper, I develop Iris Murdoch’s conception of imagination.  Murdoch opposes a certain picture of ourselves that she took to be nearly universally, and largely uncritically, accepted by mid-century Anglophone philosophers.  On this picture we passively perceive the world and exercise our agency only in choosing and acting in response to what we perceive.  This view posits sharp divisions between the passive and the active and between the theoretical and the practical.  Murdochian imagination undermines these divisions.  I reconstruct Murdoch’s position in comparison to both her own contemporaries and more recent accounts of agency, including those of Christine Korsgaard and Pamela Hieronymi.  I argue that Murdochian imagination straddles the gap between passivity and activity and combines aspects of believing and willing.

► This event is in-person. Join in person at the Centre for Ethics (Larkin Building room 200).

Kyla Ebels-Duggan

Philosophy
Northwestern University

Wed, Feb 26, 2025
12:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin