This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut literature off altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value, founded on the methods of (...) analytical philosophy, restores to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices. The authors also explore metaphysical and skeptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a social construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are at root indistinguishable. They offer rigorous analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and "making" in human thought processes. Both in their methods and in their conclusions, Lamarque and Olsen aim to restore rigor and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide new, philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing. (shrink)
What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.
The paper offers a mildly deflationary account of narrative, drawing attention to the minimal, thus easily satisfied, conditions of narrativity and showing that many of the more striking claims about narrative are either poorly supported or refer to distinct classes of narrative—usually literary or fictional—which provide a misleading paradigm for narration in general. An enquiry into structural, referential, pragmatic, and valuebased features of narrative helps circumscribe the limits of narration and the test case of the narrative definition of the self (...) is examined and shown to yield rather less that is often claimed. (shrink)
As a recent distinguished editor of British Journal of Aesthetics and a major contributor in his own right to recent debates on aesthetics and the philosophy of art – not least in the particular field with which this particular volume is concerned – Peter Lamarque is particularly well placed to author this survey of past and contemporary work on the philosophy of literature. Moreover, as those already familiar with Professor Lamarque's work will no doubt expect, this volume offers remarkably clear (...) and extensive coverage of a wide and complex philosophical field in its relatively short space of under 300 pages.Following a short preface, the work is divided into seven chapters. The first, entitled ‘Art’, generally explores the relationship between philosophy, literary theory, art …. (shrink)
By exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, _Philosophy of Literature_ gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works. Provides a comprehensive study, along with original insights, into the philosophy of literature Develops a unique point of view - from one of the field's leading exponents Offers examples of key issues using excerpts from well-known novels, (...) poems, and plays from different historical periods. (shrink)
The paper is a dialogue between a conservation architect who works on medieval churches and an analytic aesthetician interested in the principles underlying restoration and conservation. The focus of the debate is the explanatory role of narrative in understanding and justifying elective changes to historic buildings. For the architect this is a fruitful model and offers a basis for a genuinely new approach to a philosophy of conservation. The philosopher, however, has been sceptical about appeals to narrative in other contexts (...) (for example, self-identity), and rehearses some reasons for this scepticism. The dialogue explores the pros and cons of the narrative approach to conservation and seeks to forge a compromise that acknowledges concerns about inflated claims for narrative while pursuing the merits of this particular application. (shrink)
Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, ...
In Fictional Points of View, Lamarque offers new examinations of fundamental concepts in the philosophy of literature and criticism. He questions the nature of a fictional character and the relation of fiction to reality. He ask whether truth exists in literature and whether "works" or "texts" have logical priority. The volume focuses on a wide range of thinkers, including Iris Murdoch on truth and art, Stanley Cavell on tragedy, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault on "the death of the author," and (...) Kendall Walton on fearing fictions. Also included is a consideration of the fifteenth-century Japanese playwright and drama teacher Zeami Motokiyo, the founding father of Noh theather. Lamarque demonstrates a careful analytical methodology and clear language, reflecting his conviction that obfuscation is inimical to humanistic study. (shrink)
Various aspects of poetic meaning are discussed, centred on the relation of form and content. A C Bradley's thesis of form-content identity, suitably reformulated, is defended against criticisms by Peter Kivy. It is argued that the unity of form-content is not discovered in poetry so much as demanded of it when poetry is read 'as poetry'. A shift of emphasis from talking about 'meaning' in poetry to talking about 'content' is promoted, as is a more prominent role for 'experience' in (...) characterising responses to poetry and its value. It is argued that the key to poetic meaning lies less in a theory of meaning, more in a theory of poetry, where what matters are modes of reading poetry. Content-identity in poetry is said to be 'interest-relative' such that no absolute answer, independent of the interests of the questioner, can determine when a poem and a paraphrase have the same content. Interpretation of poetry need not focus exclusively on meaning, but on ways in which the experience of a poem can be heightened. (shrink)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that great works of literature have an impact on people's lives. Well known literary characters—Oedipus, Hamlet, Faustus, Don Quixote—acquire iconic or mythic status and their stories, in more or less detail, are revered and recalled often in contexts far beyond the strictly literary. At the level of national literatures, familiar characters and plots are assimilated into a wider cultural consciousness and help define national stereotypes and norms of behaviour. In the English speaking world, Shakespeare's (...) plays or the novels of Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens, and Trollope, provide imaginative material that reverberates in people's lives every bit as much as do the great historical figures, like Julius Caesar, Elizabeth I, Horatio Nelson, or Winston Churchill. What is striking is how often fictional characters from the literary tradition—like the well-loved Elizabeth Bennett, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, Pip, Tess of the d'Ubervilles—enter readers' lives at a highly personal level. They become, as Martha Nussbaum puts it, our ‘friends’, and for many readers the lives of these characters become closely entwined with their own. Happy and unhappy incidents in the fictional worlds are held up against similar incidents in the real lives of readers and such readers take inspiration from the courage, ingenuity, or good fortune of their fictional heroines and heroes. Nowhere is it more true that life imitates art. (shrink)
The familiar idea that literature is embedded in social practices that help explain both its existence and its value took a distinctive form in analytic philosophy, drawing on speech act theory and a conception of ‘rules’. A major influence was John Rawls's seminal paper ‘Two Concepts of Rules’ (1955) in which he introduced the ‘practice conception of rules’ according to which certain practices are defined by rules that in turn make possible certain kinds of action. The idea underlies the notion (...) of ‘constitutive rules’ in speech act theory and draws on a comparison with games. The origin of this idea can clearly be traced to Wittgenstein, with his highly original thoughts on practices, rules, and games. Yet the Wittgensteinian influence is not sufficiently acknowledged in this context (that is, the context of literary aesthetics). As someone who holds the idea of a practice or ‘institution’ to be of crucial importance in philosophy of literature, I therefore thought it would be useful to put the record straight and remind ourselves what Wittgenstein says about practices (and games) to see just what the relation is between the roots of that idea (in Wittgenstein) and its current manifestations in literary aesthetics. The results suggest that there is much to be learned from Wittgenstein and that his model might be more fruitful than that of Rawls. (shrink)
The paper considers what kinds of things are musical, literary, pictorial and sculptural works, how they relate to physical objects or abstract types, and what their identity and survival conditions are. Works are shown to be cultural objects with essential intentional and relational properties. These essential properties are connected to conditions of production and conditions of reception, of both a generic and work-specific kind. It is argued that work-identity is value-laden, whereby essential to the survival of a work is the (...) quality of the experience the work affords. However, the overall stance is realist, defending the view that works are real, perceivable, and objectively characterisable. (shrink)
The paper discusses the principle by which we reason to what is ‘true in fiction’. The focus is David Lewis's article ‘Truth in Fiction’ (1978) which proposes an analysis in terms of counterfactuals and possible worlds. It is argued thatLewis's account is inadequate in detail and also in principle in that it conflicts radically with basic and familiar tenets of literary criticism. Literary critical reasoning about fiction concerns not the discovery of facts in possible worlds but the recovery of meanings (...) in interpretative frameworks. The model theoretic approach fails to account for common literary or rhetorical devices like unreliable narration, connotation and point of view. And in explaining indeterminacy of content in terms of truth-value gaps it gives too simplistic an account of critical reasoning about character motivation and thematic development. A more adequate account of content-indeterminacy can be provided through a comparison of the interpretation of fiction with the interpretation of human action. A broader motif in the paper is the underlying tension between what is required for the logic of fiction and what is required for the aesthetics of fiction. (shrink)
The paper considers what kinds of things are musical, literary, pictorial and sculptural works, how they relate to physical objects or abstract types, and what their identity and survival conditions are. Works are shown to be cultural objects with essential intentional and relational properties. These essential properties are connected to conditions of production and conditions of reception, of both a generic and work-specific kind. It is argued that work-identity is value-laden, whereby essential to the survival of a work is the (...) quality of the experience the work affords. However, the overall stance is realist, defending the view that works are real, perceivable, and objectively characterisable. (shrink)
The paper argues that there is a proper place for literature within aesthetics but that care must be taken in identifying just what the relation is. In characterising aesthetic pleasure associated with literature it is all too easy to fall into reductive accounts, for example, of literature as merely “fine writing”. Belleslettrist or formalistic accounts of literature are rejected, as are two other kinds of reduction, to pure meaning properties and to a kind of narrative realism. The idea is developed (...) that literature—both poetry and prose fiction—invites its own distinctive kind of aesthetic appreciation which far from being at odds with critical practice, in fact chimes well with it. (shrink)
It is only relatively recently that analytical philosophers have given special focus to poetry as a topic in its own right in aesthetics or as a semi-autonomous branch of the philosophy of literature. A new field is taking shape: the so-called Philosophy of Poetry. But do analytical philosophers have anything new to say on the topic? What kinds of issues or problems attract their attention? Rather than simply surveying the field, the paper looks at some emerging concerns- about form & (...) content, experience, interpretation, expression, and poetic truth-and suggests that poetry poses some quite serious challenges to standard conceptions of meaning and truth. On the current showing it seems likely that studying the practices and norms of poetry will force a reconceiving of the powers or limits of language that could itself promote fresh understanding in core areas of philosophy. So bringing analytical philosophy to poetry can yield benefits in both directions, offering insights as well as challenges. (shrink)
This paper looks at some of the principles behind restoration and conservation applied to ancient artefacts and architecture. A number of case studies are discussed, from medieval stained glass to buildings that have been damaged by fire. The paper ends with some remarks about the conservation of ruins. Underlying the discussion are questions about the kinds of obligations—both ethical and aesthetic—that might constrain the practices of restoration: what ought and ought not to be done in particular cases and how such (...) decisions might be made. A broad conclusion is that different principles seem to operate in different cases and accordingly that different obligations obtain. Consideration is given to what grounds such principles and obligations. (shrink)
This is a short note on a problem arising from lewis's account of 'truth in fiction'. In the case of the unreliable narrator, A writer, On lewis's view, Must pretend to pretend. An explanation is offered for this in terms of mimicry or impersonation, And some consequences drawn about fictional ontology.
A response to Saul Fisher’s critical note on Peter Lamarque and Nigel Walter’s ‘The Application of Narrative to the Conservation of Historic Buildings’.
