Ethical Attention and the Self in Iris Murdoch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Fredriksson, Antony; Panizza, Silvia

doi:10.1080/00071773.2020.1836978

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…This distortion of reality can be called variously selfishness, selfcentredness, and self-absorption; thus, it is not the self as such that must go, but the bad (or, with Plato, the 'lower') part of it; the self is not removed, but reconfigured. This is the line taken in different ways by commentators whose readings are otherwise diverse, such as Antonaccio [14], Mole [15], Fredriksson and Panizza [16], Hämäläinen [17], and Meszaros [18].…”

Section: Unselfing or Removing The Bad Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authentic and pure values-truth, beauty and goodness-in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. (Gravity and Grace 120) 16 [25] Putting together attention to God and the idea that true values result from attention, we have a picture of Weil's extensive concept of attention: both ontological and ethical, a duty that is at once towards other individual beings and towards being itself. We attend to the world as God's creation, as the evidence of God's absence-as-presence, and as the object of God's love 17 .…”

Section: Attention As Decreationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perception, Self, and Zen: On Iris Murdoch and the Taming of Simone Weil

Panizza

2023

Philosophies

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How do we see the world aright? This question is central to Iris Murdoch’s philosophy as well as to that of her great source of inspiration, Simone Weil. For both of them, not only our action, but the very quality of our being depends on the ability to see things as they are, where vision is both a metaphor for immediate understanding and a literal expression of the requirement to train our perception so as to get rid of illusions. For both, too, the method to achieve this goal is attention. For both, finally, attention requires a dethronement of the self, considered as the source of illusion. In this paper I investigate what moral perception means for each of these philosophers and how it operates through attention and its relationship with the self. I will show that, despite many striking similarities, Murdoch’s project does not equal ‘Weil minus God’, but offers a different concept of the self, a different understanding of its removal, and therefore a different picture of attention and moral perception. In evaluating both views, I will gesture towards a third way represented by Zen Buddhism, which both philosophers variously consider but do not embrace.

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Section: Unselfing or Removing The Bad Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Attention As Decreationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception, Self, and Zen: On Iris Murdoch and the Taming of Simone Weil

Panizza

2023

Philosophies

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“…The moment of the Unself, as described by Murdoch above, does not constitute the complete erasure of the listener. Instead, as Fredriksson and Panizza acknowledge, while held at a distance in attention, the self is understood through its momentary displacement in favour of the concerns and voices of others (Fredriksson & Panizza, 2022). attentiveness, qualities of listening and the listener in the community of philosophical inquiry.…”

Section: Identity Self and Unselfmentioning

confidence: 99%

attentiveness, qualities of listening and the listener in the community of philosophical inquiry

Elvis

2023

childphilo

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This paper seeks to redress a predominant focus on speaking over listening in theorising the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI). Frequently, where listening is discussed, the focus is on encouraging children to be active listeners. This means of describing the listening that occurs in the CPI has lost some efficacy as the language of active listening has been co-opted as a management technique focussed on making the speaker feel heard with little emphasis on the intentions or outcomes for the listener. Thus, on a cynical reading, ‘active listening’ can become reduced to performative physical indicators of listening (such as eye contact and body language), overlooking the ethical-epistemic commitments of the genuinely engaged listener. Here, rather than formulating new terms to describe listening, I propose Iris Murdoch’s account of attentiveness as an apt descriptor of the effects of truly involved listening on the self that seeks to attend to the unfolding content of the CPI and as a way of characterising the qualities of a CPI where such listening is achieved. Here, attentiveness is presented as a concept that captures the unique facets of listening as a challenge to individual participants concerned with contributing effectively to the dialogue as it unfolds within the CPI and those facilitating the dialogue. The paper briefly explores some implications for practice contexts, proposing three interventions to cultivate attentiveness in CPI participants and in facilitators (especially if they are undergraduate or postgraduate in Philosophy because philosophical identities might become a barrier to attentiveness). At its conclusion, this paper repositions listening in the CPI as a productive risk with a particular form of ‘aliveness’ aptly captured by the term attention.

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“…For Murdoch, the problem with Hampshire's view is that it fails to account for the inner life of the moral agent, taking for granted that the latter is a shadow of outer behavior. In rejecting Hampshire's behaviorist method, Murdoch's view is compatible with a phenomenological approach (Fredriksson and Panizza 2020). In contrast to Hampshire, however, Murdoch also stresses that moral agency is governed by values that structure reality and that inform vision.…”

Section: Between Moral Perfectionism and Striving For The Truthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social sensitivity and the ethics of attention

Magrì

2021

European J of Philosophy

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Social sensitivity is a crucial aspect of interpersonal relationships, as it is intrinsic to the understanding of other selves as subjects situated in a social world. In revitalizing such a concept in the philosophical literature, this article examines the relation between habit, attention, and critical self-awareness that lies at the core of social sensitivity. On the one hand, I reconsider the so-called "passivity" of habit and tackle the role of attention as the power of varying point of view. On the other hand, I contrast Husserl's view of attentiveness with Murdoch's account of loving attention, arguing that social sensitivity centers on a type of striving that is closer to Husserl's methodology than Murdoch's approach to moral perfectionism.We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being; it is through an enriching and deepening of concepts that moral progress takes place. Iris Murdoch, "Against Dryness" (1961)Social sensitivity is a crucial aspect of interpersonal relationships, as it is intrinsic to the understanding of other selves as subjects situated in a social world. Like empathy, social sensitivity consists in understanding the states and feelings of others. Unlike empathy, however, social sensitivity is more directly concerned with the appraisal of the social horizon in which different subjects are positioned, and from which they may be variously conditioned or affected. Thus, social sensitivity bears discernment and attentiveness to the context in which intersubjective encounters take place, including how such situatedness is experienced by the subjects involved. A typical example of this is the teacher in the classroom, who is at once focused on the content to deliver while also paying attention to the reactions of her students as well as to her own role in the classroom. In this scenario, the teacher is presented with multiple focal

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Ethical Attention and the Self in Iris Murdoch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Perception, Self, and Zen: On Iris Murdoch and the Taming of Simone Weil

Perception, Self, and Zen: On Iris Murdoch and the Taming of Simone Weil

attentiveness, qualities of listening and the listener in the community of philosophical inquiry

Social sensitivity and the ethics of attention

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