Can Literature Know Itself and Not Become Philosophy?
Before puzzling over some possible conjunction between literature and philosophy, one has to agree on what such concepts mean. However, as soon as one wonders about their definitions, concepts like “literature” or “the novel” on the one hand, or “philosophy” or even “concept” on the other, prove all...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Association Française d'Etudes Américaines
2020-12-01
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| Series: | Transatlantica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/15428 |
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| Summary: | Before puzzling over some possible conjunction between literature and philosophy, one has to agree on what such concepts mean. However, as soon as one wonders about their definitions, concepts like “literature” or “the novel” on the one hand, or “philosophy” or even “concept” on the other, prove all too elusive. If one thinks they know what a novel is, it proves virtually impossible to freeze a suitable definition of the aesthetic concept. The reason for that impossibility might be that philosophy’s mission, to the extent that it reflects upon concepts, is somehow to blur them. Yet this article aims to show that it is precisely in that sense that literature, through the example of the novel, is in itself philosophical to the degree that what defines the novel is a self-reflexive interrogation of what makes it so. With the example of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, the article concludes that there might be no intrinsic knowledge of our (aesthetic) concepts outside examples. |
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| ISSN: | 1765-2766 |