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lucaruns OP t1_isowh1r wrote

Reply to comment by BillBigsB in On Reading Literature as Philosophy by lucaruns

I wouldn’t consider this essay to be a debate of whether philosophy or literature is better.

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BillBigsB t1_isrsjxb wrote

The point is not what the essay says, it is that Plato condemned the poets in place of philosophy — the argument is essentially that literature may seem philosophic but in reality it only invokes the emotions and thymos of the reader over the intellect (which is the true purpose of philosophy). In short, literature points to what appears to be while philosophy proper points to what is.

I did skim your essay, and at best you are giving only a superficial reading of a very complexed and intricate subject. First, philosophy is not — at its core — self-help and aphorisms. And katharsis has no real connection to philosophy. Aristotle was writing a normative analysis of the form of poetry and its appeal to human beings — outside of that it has no applicability to philosophy and, in fact, his teacher vehemently rejected such art forms in comparison to a love of sophia or a love for the highest order of knowledge attainable. Philosophy under its original definition, necessarily transcends the superficial katharsis of poetry (and literature by extension).

That is not to say there aren’t powerful arguments and esoteric readings of Plato to suggest different, but that would be to depart on a voyage that far exceeds the purpose of your essay.

To put it frank, if you don’t like philosophy that is fine and it just means you aren’t a philosopher, but the assertion that literature can exist in its place requires a much more nuanced evaluation than it appears you are capable of giving in your essay.

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lucaruns OP t1_issbgz8 wrote

I was discussing self-help books as self-help and aphorisms. I realize now the way I wrote that part of the essay is a reason why my point is being misunderstood. I love philosophy, and I think that everyone should engage with it. The point of my essay is that literature is a way that a person without a sufficient foundation in philosophy can still connect with the ideas. I see self-help books as poor attempt to connect people with philosophical ideas, as self-help books lack any sort of nuance; they water-down the philosophical discussion. I think that literature puts a different angle to philosophical discussion.

I can explain this away in the comment section, but your critique accurately points out how poorly written my essay is. It was intended for a very broad (and poorly thought out, in retrospect) audience. Thanks for the feedback.

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BillBigsB t1_istcgzs wrote

All I am trying to do is point you to and make you consider the earliest argument to the point you are engaging with. As the cliche goes, there is nothing new under the sun.

Likewise, I haven’t acknowledged that there is a valid observation buried in your essay — it is that there is whole branches of philosophy (nihilism and existentialism) that were created in literature. But I think the ancients (and my own leanings) would reject those branches at a fundamental level.

All this is to say, there is definitely something to your essay, I think it needs to be refined much more first. I would read the first few books and then book 10 of the republic to get a just of the quarrel between the poets and philosophers. Then if you dig around the Straussians work a bit you will find some very compelling arguments. For example, leon Craig has three books that argue Shakespeare was a philosopher. Likewise, Father Fortin writes a book called dissent and philosophy in the middle ages that makes a similar argument about Dante.

Underneath this the thing to consider about the topic is that these scholars all wrote volumes arguing only a piece of the thesis you are proposing in your essay. That is only to say, as I have already, you are only just stepping into the labyrinth.

One personal question I have regarding the topic is that almost all significant proper philosophers — such as Machiavelli, Rousseau, Nietzsche (and likely many more) — were all playwrights or fiction authors. And as I mentioned in my first comment this goes all the way back to Plato. The question I have is why, then, they wrote both plays and treatises that cover much of the same material? Curious.

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lucaruns OP t1_isv2gd0 wrote

Thanks for your suggestions. I will use the example of Camus to answer your question at the end of your comment, as I am most familiar with the reasoning behind his decision to write both philosophical essays and fiction to convey his points. The fiction, for him, is like a complex thought experiment to express his ideas more clearly argued in his philosophical works. The Stranger was written at the same time as The Myth of Sisyphus, and I believe that the fictional work in the former aims to make up where his discussion of the allegory of Sisyphus falls short, primarily addressing how a man conscious of the absurd might live a human life, and it adds further nuance to that as well. I am aware that you would probably not buy this example, as you reject the existentialists and nihilists (and I am assuming the absurdists, as well). I cannot speak about the fiction of Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, though I have read some of their philosophical works. I would assume that they wrote fiction for similar reasons to Camus, mainly to flesh out their philosophies in attempted aesthetic portrayals of the human experience.

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What this really boils down to is that I wrote a short essay that should have been a book's length. Also, of course I didn't think that any claim I was making in my essay was new. I wrote a rhetorical essay, not an academic one. I'm obviously not educated enough to write it alongs the lines of academic discourse, so I didn't bother. I am genuinely glad that you responded to it, though, because I posted this essay on this sub with the intention of stimulating further discussion on the topic I skimmed the surface of. I want to learn more. My essay might come off as annoying to many of the people on here, but their frustration with my essay provoked them to come into the comment section and contribute to the discussion. I guess it's a bit polemical, but I still wrote the essay in good faith. From what I've learned so far in my life, I genuinely believe that philosophy and literature often go hand in hand. I am still seeking challenges to that view, and I expect it to develop and change over time. I'll read and think more about the Platonic rejection of literature and look into some of the texts you reference. Thanks!

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Imgell t1_iszctdq wrote

This is with regards to the very interesting question at the very end: I think philosophy and literature are able to approach a specific topic from different angles and the philosophers you mentioned must have noticed that. (I really enjoyed the passage of OP’s essay where he explained that Maugham enabled him to better access certain topics of Spinoza.) You could also make the argument that philosophy and literature are not as different as mainly philosophers like to think. With the exception of formal logic, philosophy relies on the very unreliable medium of language to relate some sort of truth knowledge. If you read for example Nietzsche or Wittgenstein, you cannot deny that they use literary devices to bring their point across, that their language is downright poetic sometimes.

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BillBigsB t1_iuh0kax wrote

“it is not enough for a legislator to make his people "see objects as they are"; he must also sometimes make them see objects "as they should appear to be" (Rousseau, 1979, p. 67). There are passages outside of the Social Contract in which he elaborates on the differences between the communication of a theoretical doctrine to philosophers and a variety of popular presentations to an unenlightened multitude. As an author of treatises, novels, plays, poems, and operas, Rousseau had good reason to reflect on this question, and it is one of the most frequently recurring issues in his work. “

”to persuade without convincing”: the language of Rousseau’s legislator

-Christopher kelly

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