Some of our students (and I as well!) are interested in both philosophy and literature. I’m curious about what sort of relation (if any) people see between the two. Are there some ideas/feelings/perspectives that are best expressed through literature? Are they incapable of being expressed in philosophy — or is philosophy at best clumsy when dealing with them? Or are the two equally good but different ways of getting at the deeper elements of human experience? Or is philosophy hard, and literature a pleasant relief? Or….?
USUPhilosophy 
One way it is thought that literature is beneficial to philosophy is through literature’s treatment of moral psychology. Nomy Arpaly’s recent work _Unprincipled Virtue_ begins with a piece of literature, actually, and throughout that work she calls upon real-life and nicely developed fictional characters and situations. I think that is quite interesting.
Certainly Martha Nussbaum has argued that works of art can help individuals cultivate important emotions; emotions important to ethical life. And I *believe* she has argued that in philosophy, when we are doing philosophy and writing philosophy, we appropriately seek certain things—e.g. clarity, avoidance of fallacies, directness, transparency. Aiming to cultivate certain emotions in readers might be unwise for a philosopher to do in a philosophical work, but it seems fitting for a novelist. This appears to imply, then, that there are some things philosophy, at its best, is not capable of. Or something like that.
I am rather interested in this stuff myself and, by the by, I’d love read recs from interested others.
-Jennifer Lawson
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(Sorry for the delay in your posting, Jennifer! Somehow our spam filter has gotten over-reaching.)
I think you (and Nussbaum) are right that philosophy strives mainly for clarity in ideas and reasoning. And also that Nussbaum has provided a valuable service in opening the possibility of letting our “emotional knowledge” shed light upon moral discussions or provide data for them. Maybe the critical difference is that art/literature tries to evoke emotions in us, ones that we either enjoy or wish to explore further, and philosophy tries to make sense of them (as well as many other things).
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I’ve noticed that literature is a great leeway into teaching abstract philosophical issues. Whenever I teach a certain topic, many of my students don’t comprehend the full idea behind it. I taught Hobbes political philosophy and the only thing my students get out of it is that it supports authoritarianism. But Hobbes political philosophy is richer than that. From there, I decided to assign a few chapters from Golding’s Lord of the Flies. After that experience, my students got a better understanding of how societies form and whether getting in or staying out of a society is beneficial. I think literature does help the philosophical issues present itself. Indeed, one of my students has jokingly said that all philosophers should write novels so that we can “see” what the ideas are.
I’ve also used Camus’ and Sartre’s novels to explain existentialism and believe it or not I’ve used the last Part of Gulliver’s’ Travels to explain anarchism. So in short, I believe using literature is a great tool to get the ideas across. At the same time–and this may be from my opinion–I’ve always found it fascinating that the story says something but there’s always something deeper with the symbolism behind the story and I think, or at least I hope, my students feel the same way. Lord of the Flies is an excellent example: what does the conch really mean? What does Ralph symbolize? How about Jack? What about Piggy? It’s these questions that are mainly dealing with literary themes but then I can relate it to philosophy and then it makes these characters perfect personifications of the ideas of philosophers.
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Literature can serve as a forum for giving abstract philosophical ideas concrete expression; in E.J. Pratt’s “The Truant,” for instance, we are shown a war of wits between a figure emblematizing science taken as absolute authority, the Great Panjandrum, and an embodiment of humanism and free will, the Truant. As they argue, the philosophical standpoints they embody come up against each other and the reader must negotiate the resulting debate.
Literary critics have also mobilized philosophical ideas to formulate literary theories, as we see, for instance, in deconstruction and Marxist criticism.
And, on the other side of things, philosophers have thought deeply about literature and used it to explore philosophical ideas from as early as Aristotle’s Poetics to Slavoj Zizek’s present day use of literary examples in his magnum opus, The Parallax View.
Philosophy gives profound ideas abstract, rational, logically ordered expression; literature treats these ideas in a more subtle, way, as embodied in characters and situations.
Because they approach the ideas through different avenues–philosophy through generalities and literature through particularities–I think the two areas can be complementary and equally valuable.
In teaching, it sometimes helps to draw on literature’s well of concrete examples to illustrate philosophical ideas. Works of literature can also be clarified by the application of philosophical ideas.
So I believe that works of philosophy and literature can be mutually clarifying. In both of these subjects, students need to understand both general ideas and concrete examples, both theory and practical application. Philosophy and literature give us many fascinating works, ideas, and examples to draw upon and can also both afford great pleasure if presented in an engaging way.
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