An
Important Consideration
It’s been a decade since I’ve written anything here, so I decided
to update this site in order to see if my writing has changed, because my life
certainly has. Think about the word decision. Now, think about the word
incision, and realize that a decision is a type of cutting, a type of violence.
The moment we decide to read something called literature is the moment
following a decision, many decisions in fact. In the moment we decide to read
literature we have already made a cutting judgment. What
are we doing when we read at all, regardless of if what we read is considered
literature or not? We’re cutting into something like time, being, “life”, and myriad
other oblique nouns. Nonetheless, this essay is about reading, whatever that
means.
That which separates literature from reading a recipe book, or
fanfiction, or great journalism is not such an easy distinction to make. Look
up the definition, if you haven’t already, I dare you. Defining literature is
not as easy as, say, defining gasoline. Maybe defining gasoline isn’t
that simple, either, because gasoline has properties and ingredients and levels
of potency and concentration in octane. But we have a sense of what gasoline is
and does: it’s fuel, and it makes machines go via tiny, controlled
explosions. Literature, too, has ingredients, properties, levels of potency and
concentration, but defining just what literature is requires a degree of
expertise that I cannot hope to claim for myself. I can say, however, the
decision to read something called literature already has a value
judgment built into it. Reading literature, in my view, is reading something
that has stood the test of time, a work that has been previously separated, cut
off, and set apart from the rest, for some reason or another, by authorities
and experts. Whatever it is, literature remains something mystifying and,
at the same time, edifying, and it continues to do so for a long period of that
thing called time. What is literature? What is literature’s task?
Who decides? I’m not sure, but I think I might know what literature is
when I read it.
So it
goes with philosophy: the moment we decide to read philosophy we have already
done something in the way of inquiring into a concept; a curiosity, even if
that curiosity is something as apparently innocuous as wondering what is
being said, what is being argued, and why? Nonetheless, if
I’m going to write an argument for the reading of philosophy alongside
that of literature, then I must first attempt to define just what is
philosophy and what is literature, and I’ve already shown that defining
literature remains a messy exercise, so maybe the to-be verb “is” has something
to do with it: it’s an ontologically rich verb.
Since defining
philosophy exists as an ongoing process, it is considered to be the
long, great conversation, after all, then I must do it myself, here, in
Richardson, Texas in the year 2023. I define philosophy as the tradition of
contemplative writing, but this definition seems inadequate, and for a variety
of reasons, because all writing is contemplative, isn’t it? What I mean is all
contemplative writing in the tradition known as philosophy. Alas, still
inadequate. What I mean is all contemplative writing in what is known as the
Western tradition of philosophy. Is this adequate enough? Do we know what I
mean when I say the Western tradition? None of us can name all the philosophers
who make up this tradition, but do we at least have a sense of what I mean? In
these questions should be, at the very least, a sense of consideration
when choosing to read philosophy alongside literature. Which philosophy? Which
tradition? Which literature? Which time period? So many questions. So many dumb
and impotent answers. Writing of philosophy, Karl Jaspers asks:
[w]hat is the task of philosophy today?
We know the familiar answer: None—for it is unreal, the private business of a
guild of specialists. These philosophers, we are told, occupy university chairs
dating from the Middle Ages and meet in futility, at conventions which are the
modern occasions for showing off. Their monologues are attested by a voluminous
literature, scarcely read and rarely bought, except for a few fashionable
publications with snob appeal. If the press, as the organ of public opinion takes
note of these books and periodicals which gather dust in libraries, it does so
without real interest. All in all, we hear, philosophy is superfluous,
ossified, behind the times, waiting only for its disappearance. It no longer
has a task.[1]
I hear similar sentiments when I tell people I’m studying
philosophy in graduate school. Their questions always tend to sound something
like: Really? What are you going to do with that? They rarely get the
joke when I respond with something as about as specific as the word “do” in
the question you just asked me. If they persist in questioning me, which
rarely happens, I just say I’ll teach high school or introduction courses at a
community college. Maybe I’ll start with Heraclitus, because I think he’s on to
something, and the fact that only fragments of his body of work exists is a
commentary on existence itself, and I find that hauntingly beautiful, because
that’s how life tends to happen: in fragments. Of course, I understand the
meaning of do when I’m asked what I’m going to do with a degree
in philosophy. People mean what job, what career, what money-making enterprise
am I aiming for in investing such time, energy, and stress in a field that, in
Jaspers’ words, “no longer has a task.”
I
realize Jaspers is being facetious, here, but philosophy is a sort of
specialty. I don’t know many individuals outside of the university setting who
read it for fun. I used to, and that’s what brought me to the university. Now,
I have to, and I’m not fan of many have-tos. But I respect philosophy;
I’m intrigued and profoundly interested in the questions it asks. For, that is
precisely the task of philosophy: to ask questions. Not just any questions, but
profound, cutting questions.
Now
that I’ve briefly described what literature is and what philosophy does,
I must focus on one important consideration in bringing these two worlds
together. One extremely important consideration is selecting the type of
philosophy to go with the literature we’ve made the decision to read,
presuming, of course, the literature has been chosen in such a fashion as to
warrant philosophical companionship, because I have the sense that literature
can, does, and will stand alone, by itself, triumphantly rejecting any external
influence brought to bear on it. This is, after all, one of literature’s most
prominent characteristics, one of its ingredients. In selecting the
philosophical accoutrement, one might ask questions like which branch
seems to correspond to the literature in question? Metaphysics, cosmology,
ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, ontology, political, and my favorite, “other”?
Of course, the selection process isn’t as clear cut as it might seem. Don’t all
of these branches overlap in some form or another? Some philosophers have
written about literature and language, so maybe starting with those particular
philosophers would serve as a good starting point. But then we’d have to
consider time periods. It might be prudent to consider philosophers of the same
period in which the literature in question was written. But this seems too
limiting an approach. Regardless, (or regardful) I’m still left with the
question why would we want to read philosophy together with literature?,
since both seem to be doing similar, yet different things, in different realms,
though in a shared universe. What if we chose a topic to investigate in our
literature, something like, say, suicide, and then chose a philosopher
who has written on that topic, and then compared our findings with what
we’ve found in the literature, develop an argument, and then support our
argument with both the philosophy and literature together? Isn’t this policy
for graduate schoolwork? And then?
When
we read Camus and contend with his interrogation of suicide as an attempt to
escape the absurd[2],
or when we read Cioran’s response that “a book is a postponed suicide”[3],
or when we read Hume on suicide[4],
what we’re doing is contending with deep existential questions; we are
contending with our own existence and the ability to quit it. Literature has
some things to say about suicide as well. Consider Goethe’s The Sorrows of
Young Werther, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Othello, or Hamlet’s
to be or not to be soliloquy. How many works of literature can we think of that
concern suicide? Many.
We
make emotional investments (or emotions are evoked) when reading literature.
When reading literature evokes a feeling, then we tend to want to know why, so
we grab a philosophy book, say, on the philosophy of emotion, and try to make
sense of the senses we’re making. Or, we recall Kant writing about how
appreciating art is a type of moral action, and we want to know why, because
that statement reveals to us that we have a certain moral responsibility when
appreciating art (reading literature for instance) and though Kant makes a
distinction between the beautiful and the sublime, and the sublime is not
really attached to appreciating art, but beauty is, it is in this very
distinction where philosophy is happening; Kant is making a distinction
precisely where judgement is concerned, where a decision is
requisite:
…we
often designate beautiful objects of nature or of art with names that seem to
be grounded in moral judging. We call buildings or trees majestic and
magnificent, or fields smiling and joyful; even colors are called innocent,
modest or tender, because they arouse sensations that contain something
analogical to the consciousness of a mental state produced by moral judgements.[5]
This is part of philosophy’s task: to clarify all
sorts of existential questions of meaning, of judgment, of purpose, of
responsibility, of time, of (insert ambiguous noun here). Philosophy’s
task is to attempt to clarify. Isit working? Isn’t determining whether or not a
philosophy is successful also a strange type of judgement?
What
is literature? What is literature’s task? What is philosophy? What is
philosophy’s task? And, what are we to do by bringing these two
together? These are extremely complicated questions. Literature
offers the philosopher what he or she desires most: immutable truths.[6]
Sure, we may quibble, converse, discuss, or argue over the relationship
between, say, King Lear and Cordelia. We might chalk it up to Lear’s madness or
Cordelia’s alterity. We might agree with Stanley Cavell that the play’s
aboutness pertains to acknowledgement. We might debate over Edmund’s connection
to or animosity towards his father, and we might hope to make sense of these connections
(concoctions?) through reading philosophy alongside King Lear.[7] We
might contend with each other about Shakespeare’s genius residing in a type of paradox
or hiding in something like clear ambiguity. We might discuss the reversal of
gender roles, the upended familial hierarchy, or the wisdom found in the fool.
Whereas the text is indeed open to a buffet of interpretations, it would be a complete
falsehood to say that Cordelia wasn’t Lear’s daughter, or that Edmund wasn’t a
bastard. These truths are salient, immutable; dare I say absolute? “Doing”
philosophy, then, is a natural disposition when reading literature. Reading
remains, after all, a type of doing closely associated with the doing of
philosophy: inquiry towards clarity. When we read a work of literature, we
insert ourselves into the text in one way or another. We imagine scenes or
scenarios, we listen to dialogues, and we might even get emotional about
seeming injustices. Even if we don’t understand a passage, or if we’re
frustrated or bored or don’t like what we’re reading we are still engaging, we
are still doing something: “[t]he mind’s first step is to distinguish what is
true and what is false. However, as soon as thought reflects on itself, what it
first discovers is a contradiction.”[8]
This is natural, and it seems Cavell is on to something: acknowledging the text
is acknowledging something about ourselves.
Seeing
literature through the lens of philosophy and seeing philosophy through the
lens of literature are not one and the same thing; there exists some
distinction between these two worlds. On the surface we can say that reading literature
along with philosophy reveals concepts, notions, models, viewpoints, and ideas which
might not have been considered before. Of course, we need some boundaries. Imagine
reading Nietzsche through the lens of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., or imagine reading Fifty
Shades of Grey through the lens of Aquinas, (if you can even imagine
reading Fifty Shades of Grey, or Aquinas for that matter).[9] These
questions aren’t ridiculous. Would I be merely forcing a philosopher into
fan-fiction? Why can’t I do this? Or, why shouldn’t I do this? Would I be doing
Nietzsche or Vonnegut a disservice? Do I need to read philosophy to understand this? Absolutely not.
So what, then, is the question? If
we are to consider the enquiry of reading philosophy together with literature,
then we need to set up some parameters, and this takes expertise, specialists,
which I refuse to lie to you by arguing I have what it takes to set up anything
like a parameter. We might say the task of literature is to portray
the task of philosophy through its characters, narration, setting, plot, and form,
but making these claims requires that most slippery of words in order to do so:
the word interpretation. We can be thankful, then, that literature
offers us immutable truths, and we can be simultaneously thankful that
philosophy provides us with the tools to question these immutabilities.
I’m afraid I’ve not said much as to
why we should consider reading philosophy together with literature, but I hope
through reading this essay you come away understanding that we should indeed do
both, that is read philosophy and read literature, and we should read both
together. But determining what philosophy and what literature to read together
remains a difficult endeavor, and one which requires a bit of digging and
defining. So, asking what is
philosophy, what is literature, and what is the relationship
between the two? might be summed up in that tiny to-be verb fixed
pale-blue-dot-like in the middle of the question, in the middle of that vast
space. The question remains ontological, which is to say, existential,
so I’ll end here, and then leave that decision up to you.
[1] Jaspers, Karl. Philosophy and
the World: Selected Essays. Gateway Edition. Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1963.
[2]
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Vintage, 1991.
[3] Cioran, E.M. The Trouble with
Being Born. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Arcade, 2012.
[4] Hume, David. Essays on Suicide
and the Immortality of the Soul. Honolulu: World Library, 2009.
[5] Kant, Emmanuel. Critique of the
Power of Judgment. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and
Criticism. Second edition., W.W Norton & Co., 2010. p. 449.
[6] Eco, Umberto. On Literature.
New York: Harcourt, 2004.
[7] Shakespeare, William, and R. A.
Foakes. King Lear. [New ed.] / edited by R.A. Foakes., Arden
Shakespeare, 2004.
[8] Myth of Sisyphus. p. 16.
[9] Warning! Value judgment
approaching.
