Philosophy of Literature

Едноименната творба от класика на българскта литература Йордан Радичков е ситуирана в шеговита аналогия със "занаята на философа", премеждията на философската традиция с прогреса, кризата в институцията на философията, особено в контекста на прехода през 90-те години на миналя век в Бтлгария..

This paper argues that certain literary works can only be fully appreciated if the reader is able to experience through empathy the character’s values. I call it "the axiological account" because it makes the grasping of aesthetic values dependent on the experience of other values embodied in the work. I develop my argument in three stages. First, I argue that in empathy we not only apprehend but also experience something similar to what the target is going through. Next, I show (...) how this experience is necessary to extract the aesthetic values of certain works. The final section addresses two challenges to the proposed account. (shrink)

Новелата "Козел" от класика на българската литература Йордан Рдичков (1929-2004) се обсъжда от гледна точка на философските идеи, заложени в нея. Любовта и езикът, два най-общи философски екзистенциала, се оказват свързани. Сякаш не само човекът овчар се грижи за стадото, но и козелът, водач на стадото, - за човека.

Este artículo periodiza y desarrolla los paradigmas concomitantes de la novela policial, para extrapolarlos en un contexto peruano incipiente con textos que cumplen con los requisitos indispensables denominarse de ese modo. La violencia resulta un elemento inexorable para la eficacia receptiva y su tratamiento creativo, además del conocimiento de tópicos afines, como Derecho, Política, Sociología, Fuerzas Policiales, etc. Para ello, se corroborará con la definición de este género (como lo fundamenta principalmente Tzvetan Todorov) y la taxonomía hegemónica de sus subgéneros: (...) novela de enigma, novela problema, novela negra, whodunit, novela policiaca histórica, novela policiaca de período histórico y novela criminal. (shrink)

Kendall Walton’s account of make-believe takes the social dimension of imagination into account. In this paper I aim to extend this suggestion and argue that works of fiction allow for encounters with concrete (yet fictitious) persons with a distinct point of view and a discernible perspective. These encounters allow us to contrast the perspective(s) that emerge from the work with one’s own. I will then discuss two moments of the social dimension: imagining fictional scenarios is a social practice, a game (...) we play together and in which we encounter others. Both of these moments shed light on the central role of fiction for the social community in which it is embedded and show how engaging with works of fiction can contribute to the inner cohesion and to the persistence of the group. (shrink)

Подходът на Хайдегер за синтез на философия и поезия е артикулиран преди всичко чрез цикъла работи на Хайдегер за Хьолдерлин. Привлечени са също някои иъ изследванията му за предсократиците, както и за езика като онтология.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft can be viewed as a Romantic based on his lifelong relationship with wonder. This short essay gathers further evidence of Lovecraft’s Romanticism, beginning with a brief exploration of what Romanticism is and then moving on to highlight elements of Romanticism in Lovecraft’s poem “Fact and Fancy” (1917). The essay concludes that, as much as Lovecraft can be labelled a Romantic based on his affinity with wonder, he can also be classified as such based on his aversion to (...) the cold light of reason, which to him was an insufficient antidote to the otherwise dreary world in which he found himself. (shrink)

Literary beauty was once understood as intertwining sensations and ideas, and thus as providing subjective and objective reasons for literary appreciation. However, as theory and philosophy developed, the inevitable claims and counterclaims led to the view that subjective experience was not a reliable guide to literary merit. Literary theory then replaced aesthetics as did philosophy’s focus on literary truth. Along with the demise of the relevance of sensations, literary form also took a back seat. This suggested to some that either (...) literature communicated truth like any other literal form of communication or it was a mere diversion: a springboard to harmless reverie or daydreaming. Neither response satisfactorily captured what was distinctive about literature: the love readers can have for literary texts and the edification or insight claimed of works within each culture’s respective catalogue of classics. However, a concept of literary beauty has again become viable due to developments in theories of pleasure and imagination. If the defining aspect of literature is the imaginative engagement it occasions, and if this imagining is constrained by plausibility and endorsed as effective relative to our goals, ideals, and interests, then literature is not reduced to either mere fact or wish fulfillment. An account of literary beauty is available which defines literature accordingly and explains how subjective and objective reasons for appreciation intertwine to evoke pleasure and insight. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that even if one can justify the initial impetus to want to deconstruct a literary or philosophical text, this does not make it possible in practice. To this end, I engage with relevant aspects of Derrida’s thought and examine the motivations and purpose behind wanting to carry out a deconstruction, to then offer a pragmatic critique of the idea one might ever be able to do so. I base my argument on various factors, including deconstruction’s (...) non-methodological nature and the challenges involved in adjudicating a given deconstructive reading a success or failure, among other considerations. (shrink)

Thc articlе is devoted to onе of thе grеatest Bulgarian writers: Yordan Radichkov (1929-2004). Thc choice of Radichckov's work "Attеmpt of flying" is eligiЬie to an philosophical interpretation Ьccause of the following reasons. Radichkov has won public recognition in Bulgaria. Не is а classic of the Bulgarian literature and, to а great cxtent, its fасе abroad. Не has а considcraЬle effect on the Bulgarian culture: from theatre to linguistics and philosophy. His works themselves ring true and eminently philosophically; simultaneously, they (...) are not philosophical prose. Нis ideas contain exceptional depth and originality. The mythical and folklore elements which impart characteristic Bulgarian sounding to them are emphasized. Нis typically Bulgarian view of life charms the readers. Summarizing, Radichkov's work "Attempt of fying" is represenrarive of the Bulgarian literature and possesses philosophical depth. (shrink)

Romance novels are primarily aimed at, written about, and written for women. They have been accused of being fantasies which feature sexually objectified heroines who are passive recipients of overwhelming masculine sexual energy. After shoring up these critiques of romance novels with A.W. Eaton’s account of how art can objectify its subjects, we examine a challenge to romance novels: does the sexual content in romance novels objectify its heroines? There is strong reason to think so. However, we argue that careful (...) attention to the ways art can objectify its subject reveals that romance novels are structured to make it impossible for their heroines to be objectified. In many cases, individual signs of objectification are raised as possible outcomes and dismissed as part of the plot of a romance novel. Satisfying sex in a romance novel does not appear until it is impossible for the romantic heroine to be objectified. Understood in this way, romance novels serve as a model for one way that objectification could be avoided. The fantasy of a romance novel is not objectifying sex. It is sex free of objectification. (shrink)

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with Stacie Friend’s claim that fiction is a genre, her notion of genre can be fruitfully applied to a paradigmatic genre such as science fiction. This article deploys Friend’s notion of genre in order to improve the influential characterization of science fiction proposed by Darko Suvin and to defend it from a criticism recently raised by Simon Evnine. According to Suvin, a work of science fiction must concern “a fictional ‘novum’ validated by cognitive (...) logic.” While Suvin conceives of his characterization as a necessary and sufficient condition for membership in the genre, I propose to cast the notions of “fictional novum” and “cognitive validation” as standard features of the genre, which works of science fiction should have but might lack. I argue that this amended version of Suvin’s characterization can better account for two basic properties of science fiction as a genre, namely its historicity and its relevance to appreciation. Lastly, I show that the amended version can shed some light on the affinity between works of science fiction and philosophical thought experiments. (shrink)

I argue that in Sheridan Hough's book Kierkegaard's Dancing Tax Collector, the distinctive and novelistic literary form is not a playful, whimsical, or otherwise contingent feature, but a structure that's needed to convey the account of Kierkegaardian faith as practical in nature.

Dieses Kapitel handelt von der Empathie in der Kunst. Ich beginne mit einer Reflexion über die Ursprünge des Begriffes und seine Verwendung in der Ästhetik. Es folgt eine Analyse der Empathie im Vergleich zu anderen Formen der Anteilnahme an Kunstwerken. Im dritten Teil untersuche ich die Mechanismen der Empathie in der Kunst und die Funktion der Imagination. Der vierte Teil widmet sich der Bedeutung der Gefühle bei der Empathie für Kunstfiguren. Schließlich thematisiere ich den epistemischen, moralischen und ästhetischen Wert der (...) Empathie für die Kunst. (shrink)

Depictions of children in British science fiction and horror films in the early 1960s introduced a new but dominant trope: the ‘extraordinary’ child. Extraordinary children, I suggest, are disturbing because they violate expected developmental norms, drawing on discourses from both the ‘psy’ sciences and early neuroscience. This post-war trope has been considered by film and literature scholars in the past five years, but this existing work tends to present the extraordinary child as an American phenomenon, and links these depictions to (...) adults’ psychoanalytical anxieties about parenthood and the family. This article, considering Village of the Damned, Children of the Damned, The Damned, and Lord of the Flies, will contend that the extraordinary child was British before it was American, and tapped as much into nuclear anxieties generated by the early Cold War as fears about the ‘permissive society’, especially given that many of these films preceded the peak of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and were based on British science fiction of the 1950s. The ‘psy science’ that was dominant in these films was developmental psychology, not psychoanalysis. Moreover, adolescents as well as adults were key audiences for these films. Drawing on self-narrative essays written by English adolescents aged 14 to 16 between 1962 and 1966, I will demonstrate that this age group employed their own fears of nuclear war and their knowledge of psychological language to challenge adult authority, presenting a counter-narrative to adult conceptions of the abnormal and irresponsible ‘rising generation’. (shrink)

The writing of David Foster Wallace transformed the root and branch of contemporary fiction, introducing a formal inventiveness that moved authors away from an emotionless postmodern irony. Critics have pointed to Wallace’s exploration of morality and a return to sincerity as the central concerns of his work. However, as Jeffrey Severs argues in David Foster Wallace’s Balancing Books, the author was also deeply engaged with the social, political, and economic issues of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A rebellious economic thinker, (...) Wallace not only satirized the deforming effects of money but also questioned the logic of the monetary system. In his original readings of all of Wallace’s fiction, from The Broom of the System and Infinite Jest to the story collections and The Pale King, Severs reveals Wallace to be a thoroughly political writer whose works provide an often surreal history of financial crises and neoliberal policies. -/- As Severs demonstrates, balance and value are crucial to the work of Wallace, who constantly asks us to consider what we value and why. The concept of value is where his major interests intersected: economics, work, metaphysics, mathematics, and morality. Severs also details how Wallace’s writing explores the quest for balance in a world of excess and entropy. Wallace showed characters struggling to place two feet on the ground and restlessly sought to balance the books of a chaotic culture. Explaining why Wallace’s work has galvanized a new phase in contemporary global literature, Severs draws connections to key forerunners Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, and William Gaddis, as well as successors—including Dave Eggers, Teddy Wayne, Jonathan Lethem, and Zadie Smith—interpreting Wallace’s legacy in terms of finance, the gift, and office life. (shrink)

The masses may concede that someone has talent where he has displayed a certain industry and fortune has not been unkind to him; but if he tries to enter another field and diversify his abilities, he appears to damage the claim he once had on public opinion, and therefore his efforts in a new realm are seldom accepted with favor and good will.

The editors of the recently published English translation of Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone—the philosophical and philological commentary/notebook begun in the summer of 1817, when he was 19 years of age, and abandoned in the winter of 1832, four years before his death in Naples—note that for the first time, in his entry on April 20, 1821, Leopardi supplements the date of the secular calendar with a Roman Catholic festival, such as Good Friday.1 Leopardi’s references to the Catholic calendar increase in early (...) 1822 and continue with greater frequency until the reference to Holy Week 1829. These cited festivals range from major holidays, such as Christmas and Easter (Z 4254.. (shrink)

XENOLOGY AND XENOTOPOGRAPHY OF BERNHARD WALDENFELS The paper strives to adapt Bernhard Waldenfels’ xenology and so called ‘xenotopography’ for the philosophico-literary studies in fantastic world-building with a special concern of the ‘portal-quest’ model of fantasy and SF. Following Waldenfel’s remarks on the nature of post- Husserlian diastasis of our world [Heimwelt] and otherworld [Fremdwelt] and acknowledging the consequences of allocating one’s attitude towards the otherness in the symbolical borderland [‘sphere of intermonde’] in between, it is examined whether such a model (...) can occur in the fantastic literature and what may be the consequence of xenotopographic reconsideration of its basic ontological premises. Additionally, the article offers an original xenotopograpfic model of worldbuilding which addresses three carefully chosen case studies of fantastic worlds from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game tetralogy, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and George R. R. Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire. In the end, it is suggested that hitherto presented xenotopography gravely inspired a postmodern shift in the genres of fantasy and SF which results in more ethically conscious representations of the otherness and even more concise and alien comprehensive world-building. (shrink)

Early on in the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein lists various examples of the term Sprachspiel. He begins with “commanding and following commands” and ends with “asking a favor, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying,” all familiar ingredients of what we would now call a speech act theory of language. In the middle of this list, however, is an example that has received little attention: “playing theater”.1 With this formulation, Wittgenstein moves away from a focus on games such as chess, which have unduly dominated (...) the discussion of his late philosophy, and toward an expanded notion of play that includes theater.Once one approaches Wittgenstein’s conception of language through the.. (shrink)

This article presents itself as an attempt to explain Proust’s expression, “The matter of experience”, from Husserl’s concept of Materie in the Logical Investigations. This Husserlian concept will enable us to rethink the “matter” of experience, as being both intrinsically determined and intrinsically “relational”. Husserl uses this concept of Materie in two main senses. In the fifth Logical Investigation, it is used in order to define the “content” of the act and this concept will be explained in its own equivocation, (...) as it both means the direction of the act and the ideal “signification” which prescribes this very determination. The concept of Materie is also used in the third Logical Investigation to designate the “content” of the object, and will also be explained in its own equivocation, as it both means the individual determination of the object and its essential determination. In the last part of this study, a few of the difficulties which are brought by this double equivocation of Husserl’s concept of Materie will be exposed, and a few programmatic solutions for its redefinition as the unique “matter” of our experience, will be proposed. This investigation might eventually imply a definition of phenomenology itself, as the very experience of this matter. (shrink)

-/- Die genaue Verbindung von Literatur und Ethik allgemeingültig zu beschreiben, ist eine anspruchsvolle Aufgabe: Die klassischen und gegenwärtigen Diskurse über Ethik berühren sich nur an wenigen Punkten mit der Ästhetik, dann aber — wie etwa in Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft — in emphatischer und für die ethische und die ästhetische Fragestellung in jeweils keineswegs unproblematischer Weise. 1 Sich der Verbindung von Kunst und Ethik über die Grenzen der (praktischen) Vernunft und die Möglichkeit der Darstellung des sittlich Guten zu nähern, (...) wie Kant dies tut, ist jedoch nur eine Möglichkeit unter anderen, diese Verbindung zu beschreiben. Fragt man nach dem Beitrag von Literatur zu einem guten Leben, ist damit ein anderer, nicht weniger wichtiger Topos der Ethik in der aristotelischen Tradition aufgerufen. 2 Oder man fragt – im Anschluss an Gadamer – nach dem Potential von Weltliteratur als Schule universell-menschlicher Kultur. 3 Und nicht zuletzt kann man den Beitrag von Literatur zu einem Nachdenken nicht über das Gute, sondern über Gerechtigkeit beschreiben. Diesen Versuch macht Charles Bambach mit seinem Buch.... (shrink)