"In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all"
About this Quote
Murdoch’s line is a rebuke to the modern fantasy that thinking should feel like productivity. Philosophy, she implies, doesn’t reward speed because its raw material is not information but attention: the slow, humiliating work of noticing what you’re actually assuming, what your words smuggle in, what your moral self-image edits out. A “snail’s pace” isn’t cute self-deprecation; it’s an ethical demand. If you’re racing, you’re probably just rearranging your prejudices with better vocabulary.
The intent is also quietly polemical. Murdoch spent her career pushing back against mid-century philosophical fashions that prized technical cleverness and narrow models of human agency. Her novels and essays insist that moral life is messy, soaked in fantasy, and shaped by what we fail to see. The subtext of the quote: genuine philosophical movement is mostly negative capability - sitting with confusion long enough for it to become precise, resisting the easy dopamine of a conclusion.
Context matters. Writing in a Britain still living in the shadow of war, watching public language harden into slogans, Murdoch treats philosophy as a discipline of de-seduction: a way to detox from ideology and self-serving narratives. The snail is a warning label against the “hot take” mind. If the thought arrives too quickly, it’s likely borrowed, defensive, or theatrical. Philosophy’s progress looks like hesitation because it’s busy dismantling the stage on which our certainty performs.
The intent is also quietly polemical. Murdoch spent her career pushing back against mid-century philosophical fashions that prized technical cleverness and narrow models of human agency. Her novels and essays insist that moral life is messy, soaked in fantasy, and shaped by what we fail to see. The subtext of the quote: genuine philosophical movement is mostly negative capability - sitting with confusion long enough for it to become precise, resisting the easy dopamine of a conclusion.
Context matters. Writing in a Britain still living in the shadow of war, watching public language harden into slogans, Murdoch treats philosophy as a discipline of de-seduction: a way to detox from ideology and self-serving narratives. The snail is a warning label against the “hot take” mind. If the thought arrives too quickly, it’s likely borrowed, defensive, or theatrical. Philosophy’s progress looks like hesitation because it’s busy dismantling the stage on which our certainty performs.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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