Writing the Novel of Ideas: The Philosopher and Public Intellectual
Murdoch’s place as a writer in the tradition of ‘the novel of ideas’, is explored in this chapter, as are the ways in which her political views and her standing as a public intellectual impact on novels that she denied were intentionally informed by either. The reasons why Murdoch’s moral philosophy was not well received on its publication are explained as is its current significance in the field of Virtue Ethics. The chapter moves on to illustrate the ways that her philosophy covertly infiltrates her novels without any trace of didacticism, and the difficult moral paradoxes it raises. It looks at the function of the many amateur and professional philosophers who feature in the novels before it moves on to explore how Murdoch’s robust opinions on political and social issues covertly inform novels in ways which have never been fully acknowledged by literary critics.