Philosophy of Literature/Philosophy and Literature

[holdsteady]

I'm interested in this field. It doesn't have the following and influence 'Critical Theory' does, so it can be a bit hard to track down a lot of reading material.

 

I'd really love some suggestions, especially on anthologies worth buying. I only have one at the moment. It's called Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Literature: An Analytic Approach.

 

I have the following in my amazon cart:

A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature (Blackwell)

Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature- Martha Nussbaum

The Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and Classic Readings (Blackwell)

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature

 

Any other suggestions? General comments are also welcome.

[Glasperlenspieler]

Stanford's Philosophy and Literature initiative has a list of good resources, including links to a number of published articles that are free online, which may be a good place to start, so that you can figure out which philosophers, topics, and approaches relate most to your interests before forking over a lot of money for anthologies, which can often be quite expensive: http://philit.stanford.edu/library.html

 

If your university has access to it, there's a journal devoted to Philosophy and Literature, which would be another good place to see what is happening currently in the field: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_and_literature/

 

Personally, I'm very interested in the work done by Martha Nussbaum, Alexander Nehama, Stanley Cavell, Arthur Danto, Gregory Currie, Richard Moran, and Ted Cohen, but that's just the tip of the iceberg and represents my own favored approaches to the discipline.

 

If you're interested in truth and fiction, there's no better place to start than David Lewis's seminal essay "Truth in Fiction" (1978) availiable here: http://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/, whereas if you're interested in emotions and fiction, the best starting place would be Kendall Walton's "Fearing Fictions" ( http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2025831?uid=3739960&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103757518357).  So a lot depends on what within philosophy of literature you're interested in.

 

Also, while not specific to literature, I'm a big fan of this anthology: http://www.amazon.com/Aesthetics-Ethics-Intersection-Cambridge-Philosophy/dp/0521585139

 

I hope that helps.  Feel free to let me know if you have other questions either here or over PM.  It's great to have someone else interested in Philosophy of Literature on these boards!

Edited March 28, 2014 by DerPhilosoph

[holdsteady]

Stanford's Philosophy and Literature initiative has a list of good resources, including links to a number of published articles that are free online, which may be a good place to start, so that you can figure out which philosophers, topics, and approaches relate most to your interests before forking over a lot of money for anthologies, which can often be quite expensive: http://philit.stanford.edu/library.html

 

If your university has access to it, there's a journal devoted to Philosophy and Literature, which would be another good place to see what is happening currently in the field: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_and_literature/

 

Personally, I'm very interested in the work done by Martha Nussbaum, Alexander Nehama, Stanley Cavell, Arthur Danto, Gregory Currie, Richard Moran, and Ted Cohen, but that's just the tip of the iceberg and represents my own favored approaches to the discipline.

 

If you're interested in truth and fiction, there's no better place to start than David Lewis's seminal essay "Truth in Fiction" (1978) availiable here: http://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/, whereas if you're interested in emotions and fiction, the best starting place would be Kendall Walton's "Fearing Fictions" ( http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2025831?uid=3739960&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103757518357).  So a lot depends on what within philosophy of literature you're interested in.

 

Also, while not specific to literature, I'm a big fan of this anthology: http://www.amazon.com/Aesthetics-Ethics-Intersection-Cambridge-Philosophy/dp/0521585139

 

I hope that helps.  Feel free to let me know if you have other questions either here or over PM.  It's great to have someone else interested in Philosophy of Literature on these boards!

That definitely helps.

 

I love Philosophy and Literature (the journal), for so many reasons. They've published some dud articles, but overall it's one of the most exciting journals out there as far as I'm concerned.

 

Both of the essays you mentioned are in the anthology I have. I tend to want broader exposure to a lot of these issues, which is why anthologies come in handy. The aesthetics/ethics anthology you mentioned seems really compelling.

 

Thanks, also, for the list of names. Some I'm familiar with, others not so much. There are a few (Cavell for instance) I'm familiar with but need to read more of.

[bar_scene_gambler]

That definitely helps.

 

I love Philosophy and Literature (the journal), for so many reasons. They've published some dud articles, but overall it's one of the most exciting journals out there as far as I'm concerned.

 

Both of the essays you mentioned are in the anthology I have. I tend to want broader exposure to a lot of these issues, which is why anthologies come in handy. The aesthetics/ethics anthology you mentioned seems really compelling.

 

Thanks, also, for the list of names. Some I'm familiar with, others not so much. There are a few (Cavell for instance) I'm familiar with but need to read more of.

 

 

If you're going to read anything by Cavell, you should read The Claim of Reason. It's simply phenomenal. If you're interested in Wittgenstein, his This New Yet Unapproachable America is also very good. Also, his stuff on Shakespeare is great if you're familiar with Shakespeare (more than what your standard high school education gives you anyway)

[jailbreak]

Martha Nussbaum is good. Additionally, read Cora Diamond's essays on literature: "Moral Differences and Distances," "The Difficulty of Reality, The Difficulty of Philosophy," "The Importance of Being Human" are some that come to mind. And I second the recommendations for Cavell, who is one of my favorite contemporary philosophers. "The Avoidance of Love" is a (very long and famous) essay in The Claim of Reason about King Lear.

[Weltgeist]

Martha Nussbaum is good. Additionally, read Cora Diamond's essays on literature: "Moral Differences and Distances," "The Difficulty of Reality, The Difficulty of Philosophy," "The Importance of Being Human" are some that come to mind. And I second the recommendations for Cavell, who is one of my favorite contemporary philosophers. "The Avoidance of Love" is a (very long and famous) essay in The Claim of Reason about King Lear.

 

The whole "Avoidance of Love" is actually in Must We Mean What We Say? but some of it is basically recapitulated in the last chapter of The Claim of Reason.

 

Also Adorno's Notes to Literature should be required reading. I think Shierry Nicholson translated it and she always does a good job.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Weltgeist

[blumenbergian]

In addition to all the fantastic recommendations above (I particularly like Nussbaum's Love's Knowledge!) I would recommend an essay by Richard Rorty called "Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality" as well as parts of his Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. In both places he's articulating why he views literature (particularly the novel) as a superior discourse for inducing solidarity and love for our fellow citizens than philosophy is capable of doing. 

[jailbreak]

The whole "Avoidance of Love" is actually in Must We Mean What We Say? but some of it is basically recapitulated in the last chapter of The Claim of Reason.

 

Also Adorno's Notes to Literature should be required reading. I think Shierry Nicholson translated it and she always does a good job.

 

Whoops, you're right. Sorry about that.

[maxhgns]

When you read Lewis's Truth in Fiction, make sure you also read the postscripts to that article. If you can't find them, I can email them to you.

 

You need to read Walton's Mimesis as Make Believe. You should also read Currie's The Nature of Fiction and Davies's Aesthetics and Literature. You should also peruse Thomasson's Fiction and Metaphysics. That'll give you a really good handle on the fundamentals of the (analytic version of) the field, and give you what you need to start tackling the articles. (Woods's The Logic of Fiction is a really cool precursor to the debate too.)