Philosophy of Literature E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Ratio Special Issues
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 269

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Philosophy of Literature presents six newly-commissioned essays from international scholars that address some of the key issues relating to the philosophy of literature, a thriving and increasingly influential branch of aesthetics

• Features a half dozen newly commissioned articles from leading scholars in the field of philosophy of literature
• Focuses on a branch of aesthetics that has not received the attention it deserves
• Includes a reading on the historical relationship between philosophy and literature with recent developments and projections for the future
• Contributors include Peter Lamarque (University of York), Peter Kivy (Rutgers University, USA) and Stein Haugom Olsen (University of Bergen, Norway)

Leseprobe

List of Contributors

Preface

1 LITERATURE, KNOWLEDGE, AND THE AESTHETIC ATTITUDE

2 THE ELUSIVENESS OF POETIC MEANING

II

III

IV

V

3 FICTIONAL FORM AND SYMPHONIC STRUCTURE: AN ESSAY IN COMPARATIVE AESTHETICSrati_44347..64

(1) Introduction

(2) Aesthetic and Aesthetic

(3) Formal Structure

(4) Fictional Form: An Implausible Thesis

(5) Reading Time, Listening Time

(6) Conclusion

4 CRITICISM OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM OF CULTURE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

5 INCENSE AND INSENSIBILITY: AUSTIN ON THE ‘NON-SERIOUSNESS’ OF POETRY

I

II

III

IV

V

6 PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE: YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROWrati_446112..133

I

II

III

Index

Ratio Book Series

Each book in the series is devoted to a philosophical topic of particular contemporary interest, and features invited contributions from leading authorities in the chosen fi eld.

Volumes published so far:

Philosophy of Literature, edited by Severin Schroeder

Essays on Derek Parfi t’s On What Matters, edited by Jussi Suikkanen and John Cottingham

Justice, Equality and Constructivism, edited by Brian Feltham

Wittgenstein and Reason, edited by John Preston

The Meaning of Theism, edited by John Cottingham

Metaphysics in Science, edited by Alice Drewery

The Self?, edited by Galen Strawson

On What We Owe to Each Other, edited by Philip Stratton-Lake

The Philosophy of Body, edited by Mike Proudfoot

Meaning and Representation, edited by Emma Borg

Arguing with Derrida, edited by Simon Glendinning

Normativity, edited by Jonathan Dancy

This edition first published 2010

Originally published as Volume 22, No. 4 of Ratio

Chapters © 2010 The Authors

Book compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Philosophy of literature / edited by Severin Schroeder.

p. cm.—(Ratio book series)

“Originally published as volume 22, no. 4 of Ratio”—T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4443-3363-3

1. Literature—Philosophy. I. Schroeder, Severin.

PN49.P47 2010

801—dc22

2010008426

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Maximilian de Gaynesford

Department of Philosophy

University of Reading

Peter Kivy

Rutgers University

New Brunswick

Peter Lamarque

Department of Philosophy

University of York

Stein Haugom Olsen

Østfold University College

Norway

M. W. Rowe

School of Philosophy

University of East Anglia

Norwich

Martin Warner

Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature

University of Warwick

Coventry

PREFACE

Versions of four of the papers in this collection (those by Peter Kivy, Peter Lamarque, M. W. Rowe, and Martin Warner) were presented to the one-day Ratio conference on ‘Philosophy of Literature’, held at the University of Reading in April 2008. The papers by Maximilian de Gaynesford and Stein Haugom Olsen were contributions invited for this volume.

Severin Schroeder

Department of Philosophy

University of Reading

1

LITERATURE, KNOWLEDGE, AND THE AESTHETIC ATTITUDE

M. W. Rowe

Abstract

An attitude which hopes to derive aesthetic pleasure from an object is often thought to be in tension with an attitude which hopes to derive knowledge from it. The current paper argues that this alleged conflict only makes sense when the aesthetic attitude and knowledge are construed unnaturally narrowly, and that when both are correctly understood there is no tension between them. To do this, the article first proposes a broad and satisfying account of the aesthetic attitude, and then considers and rejects twelve reasons for thinking that deriving knowledge from something is incompatible with maintaining an aesthetic attitude towards it. Two main conclusions are drawn. 1) That the representational arts are often in a good position to communicate non-propositional knowledge about human beings. 2) That while our desire to obtain pleasure from a work’s manifest properties, and our desire to obtain knowledge from it, are not the same motive, the formal similarities between them are sufficiently impressive to warrant both being seen as elements of the aesthetic attitude.

Some philosophers and critics feel that a desire to appreciate something aesthetically, and a desire to acquire knowledge from it, are two quite separate and possibly incompatible motives.1

Peter Lamarque and Stein Olsen, for example, have argued that it is quite possible to acquire truths from a novel, but that the truths thus acquired have no bearing on its artistic quality.2 This does not mean, however, that they endorse aestheticism or feel that novels are unconnected with life. On the contrary, they argue that novels enact, develop, explore and imaginatively realize perennial human - love, death, ageing, and so forth - and that these themes can be developed and explored without endorsing or discovering .