It was in Aristotles lifetime that the first greek was born to propose a heliocentric theory. I suggest you learn more about greek physics before you profound such errors.

“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

The common will — Rousseau framed the house, Hegel finished it!

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.

I wrote an intricate reply then my phone died. So, you should read Three Waves of Modernity and peruse Nietzsche and Modern Times by Laurence Lampert. In short, science is not the category but the branch. In other words, the scientific method is a particular type of philosophy but it is not an exhaustive definition of the later. Philosophy, on the political level at least, fundamentally deals in Noble Lies. Moderns chose to alter the application of such but that doesn’t mean that all modern philosophy is scientific. Rousseau and Nietzsche, in particular, certainly are not.

Fascism baby, he invented it!

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.

The ancient quarrel between literature and philosophy — brought to you by the guy who invented philosophy in a piece of literature.