Abstract

Arguing that he wants to achieve a better understanding of the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, C. Fred Alford in his article “Emmanuel Levinas and Iris Murdoch: Ethics as Exit?” compares Levinas’s ideas with those of Iris Murdoch and concludes that the major difference between the two philosophers consists in their attitude toward everyday reality. Alford claims that although both philosophers are concerned with one’s relation with the other person, Levinas is “never interested in the concrete reality of the other person, whose fleshy reality can only get in the way of transcendence,” 1 whereas for Murdoch, he asserts, the goal is to escape the illusions of the self and see the world as it is, “filled with.