A great many more will come to it from their reading of Dame Iris's 24 variously brilliant novels, and such readers will not necessarily be at a disadvantage. For the novels will have prepared them for the philosophy in two different ways. Some of the theses and arguments central to the philosophy have already provided matter for reflection and response by characters in the novels. Words said to particular individuals at particular times may occasion wisdom. Murdoch's novels should have taught her readers to approach all philosophy, including her own, warily, and hers are not the only reasons for so doing.
Philosophy is always a conversation in which there are a number of voices to be heard.
Which of them we need most to tend to at any given moment is partly a matter of what we are otherwise liable to ignore or forget. This book is a salutary and needed reminder of the intellectual and moral power of the Murdoch version of Platonism. In her view, what is central to the moral life is our imperfect apprehensions of a perfection that we cannot ever fully comprehend. We learn of perfection and imperfection through our ability to understand what we see as an image or shadow of something better which we cannot yet see. The idea of Good, perceived in our confused reality, also transcends it.