@op

Lovely thread

Thank you,

Lovely post

"The object both requires and guarantees the subject"

"Thinking is not a mental composition repeated aloud verbatim, spoken words do not have to have mental equivalents, recognition and remembrance do not depend on comparison with inner pictures, words are not names of things, there is no God-named reality lying under the net of some single correct meaning-bearing language."

• Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals

"Subjects begin to see different objects; they have a deeper and wider and wiser understanding of the world. The pilgrim will not only produce a better series of acts, he will have (down to last details) a better series of mental states. He can literally see better, see people's faces and leaves on trees, he will more rapidly and easily expel an unworthy thought or improper image. Herein the concepts of knowledge, truth, justice and moral passion are internally bound together. Knowledge informs the moral quality of the world, the selfish self-interestedly casual or callous man sees a different world from that which the careful scrupulous benevolent just man sees; and the largely explicable ambiguity of the word 'see' here conveys the essence of the concept of the moral."

• Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals

"Any artist, or thinker, or craftsman knows of crucial moments when an aggregate of reflection and skill must now be pressed a little harder so as to achieve some significantly better result. If that now is missed, passed over in vagueness and lassitude, the collected power is dissipated and the result is less good, as the thinker moves in a relaxed or lazy manner from it's too soon to try to 'it's too late to try this stuff is finished anyway'. This is a place for the notion of an effort of will."

• Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals

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