Samuel Beckett's 'Philosophy Notes'The Irish writer and Nobel Prize winner, Samuel Beckett, assembled for himself a history of western philosophy during the 1930s, just at the point at which his first novel, Murphy, was coming together. The 'Philosophy Notes', together with related notes taken at that time about St. Augustine, thereafter provided Beckett with a store of knowledge, but also with phrases and images, which he took up in the major work that won him international and enduring fame, from the dramas Waiting for Godot and Endgame, through to the late prose works Worstward Ho and Stirrings Still. This edition presents, for the first time, Beckett's full 'Philosophy Notes', which constitute his most extensive unpublished text. The Notes display Beckett's own interests and emphases within the history of western philosophy, from the pre-Socratic Greeks onwards, together with more familiar figures in the study of his work, such as Descartes, Leibnitz, and Geulincx. Here we see Beckett's original thoughts on all of these figures for the first time. The Notes also, tellingly and often comically, display Beckett's impatience with many aspects of philosophy, such as its anthropological or anthropomorphic bias, or the idealism of the Enlightenment and Kant. The Edition contains an extensive Introduction, outlining the origin of Beckett's Notes, his major sources and approach to them, the historical context for his view of philosophy, and the significance of Beckett's 'Philosophy Notes' within his mature writings. The many footnotes then suggest ways in which particular aspects of the philosophy narrated here by Beckett suggest fresh insights into those later writings--the images, but also the creative impulses, behind some of his most famous texts. This Edition, further, raises larger questions about, and perspectives upon, the relation between philosophy and literature in the twentieth century and beyond. |
Contents
List of Abbreviations Used in this Edition | ix |
Introduction | xi |
Note on the Text | xlix |
SAMUEL BECKETTS PHILOSOPHY NOTES | 1 |
Ancient Philosophy | 3 |
HellenisticRoman Philosophy | 180 |
Philosophy of Middle Ages | 236 |
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aesthetic Anaxagoras antithesis Aristotelian Aristotle associational psychology Athens atoms Augustine Beckett Studies Beckett's Books Beckett/Philosophy black pen Burnet Cartesian causal century conception consciousness darker shade Democritus Descartes dialectic Dirk Van Hulle divine doctrine Donatists edited Eleatic elements Empedocles Epicureans essence ethical existence finite German Greek Philosophy heading in margin Heraclitus History of Philosophy human ideal ideas individual infinite intellectual Journal of Beckett Kant knowledge Leibniz Leucippus logic London Malebranche mathematical matter Matthew Feldman metaphysics mind monad moral motion Murphy Neo-Platonism object opposition Parmenides perception phenomena Philosophy Notes Plato Plotinus principle problem Protagoras psychology pure Pythagorean rational realised reality reason red pen regarded relation religion Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui scepticism Schopenhauer Scotus sensation sense sensuous Socrates Sophists soul space spirit Stoics substance Thales theory things Thomism thought tion translation verso virtue Watt Whoroscope Notebook Windelband Xenophanes Xian Xianity