My current PhD research aims to analyze and deepen the concept of freedom in the philosophical-moral reflection of Iris Murdoch, one of the most singular and significant female voices of the twentieth century. The main purpose is to focus on Murdoch’s philosophical contribution to evade an abstract and formalistic conception of freedom, which debases concrete and historical human determinations (as happens in logical positivism and existentialism). Murdoch’s moral proposal – an ethics of vision as a process of moral refinement, optical adjustment and outward decentralization “away from the self […] towards the great surprising variety of the world” – will be interpreted as a substantial affirmation of freedom, an uninterrupted anthropological-moral project of self-flourishing.

Contact: s.conti@lumsa.it ; silvia.conti95@gmail.com