Philosopher and novelist (Jean) Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) was born in Dublin, Ireland on July 15 and educated at St. Anne's College, Oxford, where she also taught from 1948 to 1963. She won the 1978 Booker Prize for her novel The Sea, The Sea, which provocatively opens with the protagonist's project of "learning to be good, after a life of egoism, art and power." Murdoch is especially renowned for reviving the classical humanistic philosophy of Plato. She makes Plato's philosophy of ideal truth, beauty, and goodness timely and accessible to general readers, articulating a view of human life as love's labor in journeying from illusion to truth. This vision is especially challenging in a world dominated by scientific reason and technological pursuits of material goods. Murdoch died on February 8 in Oxford, England.

Iris Murdoch, 1919–1999. The works of this novelist and philosopher portray characters whose warped and often dreamlike perceptions of reality create...