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A philosopher and writer, below Iris Murdoch remarks on the relationship and the border line between the two realms.
I find her rather impressive and am looking forward to reading some of her fiction—she certainly is a good (moral) philosopher, as I seem to remember from reading her Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.
In the interview, Iris Murdoch warns against muddling up literature and philosophy, by which latter she no doubt thinks of technical philosophy.
I am interested in the possibilities of literature as a platform for playing out intriguing philosophical themes and their weightier implications. Perhaps, I am not yet sufficiently clear as to what I mean by the—presumably non-technical—philosophical issues that may find a new lease of life or an enhanced stage in the sphere of literature.
A promising example that I can think of from the top of my head is a literary décor in which a protagonist (and only he, as opposed to everybody else) finds himself allowed to kill his fellow creatures with impunity. This should yield us quite a gripping knot of sociological, philosophical and psychological implications with stirring moral and other philosophical challenges and insights.
As for the interview, I was particularly struck by the following statement, beginning at time mark 07:50 (transcribed below up to 08:15), where Iris Murdoch suggests
... there is very, very little great art, and one reason for this is that both the artist and, of course, the consumer, too, as it were, seek too readily to be consoled ... some kind of appeasing or consoling pattern, sentimentality, would be one aspect of this, which, then prevents one from producing something which is got the kind of hardness and truthfulness which great art has got."
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