아이리스 머독의 실존주의 비판: 전후 자유주의의 새 방향을 찾아

Abstract

The literary critics on Murdoch generally agree to the argument that the influence of Existentialism on her was very complex and delicate. Murdoch has expressed great admiration for Sartre's literary works, particularly his novel, La Nausee. However, the impact of Sartre's Existentialism on her is more noticeable in the philosophical and political aspects of his writing. In the disturbing intellectual years after the war, Sartre's Existential theory of human nature and human freedom led her to hold the liberal theory of personality against the Logical Positivism in Britain.In spite of her initial fascination with Sartre, Murdoch had, in fact, detached herself from him as her original moral vision in philosophy was setting up. She was particularly against Sartre's concept of existential freedom--the absolute freedom of the individual self, because freedom of the individual would be, she argued, being relentlessly driven by selfish urges. She strenuously opposed the false purity of freedom and showed how any of choice is mixed up in the impure conditions spreading around and within it. Murdoch also criticized the tradition of Liberalism on the basis of that it shared the similar view on freedom with Existentialism.In contrast to Sartre's concept of absolute freedom, Murdoch champions the true nature of particularity and contingency in the world in her first novel, Under the Net. The protagonist of the novel, at first, falls into misunderstanding and wrong actions by his egoistic fantasy. He finally achieves to overcome his egoism at the moment when he realizes the contingent nature of the world around him.