Philosophy 375 A 001: Philosophy and Literature, 2016—17, First Term
Tuesdays and Thursdays 12.30 –2.00
Professor Peter Schouls
Buchanan E360. Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2.00 – 3.00
Please note well:(i)if you make an appointment by email you will be guaranteed not to have to wait in the hall (sometimes in vain if other students already made appointments);(ii) ifyou email me, always put Phil 375 in the subject line; (iii) you can also make an appointment with me right after class for the first available slot.
Texts, required readings, essays, and final examination
This course will engage you in philosophical discussion of questions about literature. Among such questions are the following. Are there criteria that we can use to determine what is and what is not literature? If we were to define what literature is, would such a definition have to be descriptive or might it be prescriptive? Is all literature fiction? Is imagination necessary for creating, and for understanding, a work of literature? In what way is, for example, a novel ‘real’ and how does its ‘reality’ differ from that of a painting or of an opera? Are fictional characters real? What’s so special about metaphor? In what way(s) can we speak of truth in fiction? How does literature relate to emotional responses it may evoke, or to values of an aesthetic or ethical nature?
It will by now be clear that this course is not about philosophical ideas in literature and that its focus is not the analysis of specific literary works. Nevertheless, philosophers like to use examples, and to make certain that the entire class is familiar with at least one specific example of a contemporary literary work, the required reading for this course includes one novel in addition to the required philosophical text.
Texts:
- Philosophy of Literature, Contemporary and Classic Readings, edited by Eileen John and Dominic McIver Lopes (2004). All of this text is recommended reading. The required readings are listed on the next page. This text will form the backbone of the course.
- Mister Pip, a novel (2007) by Lloyd Jones.(Note: I strongly recommend that you read this novel as soon as possible. It is required reading, will function in this course from beginning to end, and plays a not insignificant role in several of the essay topics.)
Course requirements (in addition to the required readings) will include a two-hour final exam based on the required readings and lectures, and two essays; each of these will constitute one-third of the mark for the course. The topics for both essays you will find further on in this handout.
Required readings from Philosophy of Literature:
- 1. Plato’s Republic
- 7. Hirsch’s ‘What Isn’t Literature?’
- 10. Stecker’s ‘What is Literature?’
- 12. Wollheim’s ‘Literary Works as Types’
- 13. Urmson’s ‘Literature’
- 17. Searle’s ‘The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse’
- 20. Walton’s ‘Fiction and Nonfiction’
- 25. Walton’s ‘Fearing Fictionally’
- 26. Feagin’s ‘The Pleasures of Tragedy’
- 31. Cohen’s ‘Metaphor, Feeling, and Narrative’
- 41. Stolnitz’s ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art’
- 42. Wilson’s ‘Literature and Knowledge’
- 43. Nussbaum’s ‘”Finely Aware and Richly responsible”’
We will discuss these chapters in the order in which they have been listed. Since you will get most out of this course if you do the readings before we discuss them in class, it will be a good policy always to be two readings ahead of where we are in our class discussions.
About the final exam: There will be a full discussion about the nature and content of the exam during the last class of this course.
About the essays:
Because some students may prefer to write on a topic that we have not yet discussed in class, I have, for each of the two essays, set three topics from which to choose. With the third topics we will not deal until after the due dates for the essays. So, if you like, you can be on your own.
But ‘being on your own’ in a sense holds for all of you, in that I much prefer you to stay away from secondary sources both for your exposition and your critique of the topics you have selected. It is more important for you to tell me what you think than for you to tell me what someone else thinks about your topics. None of this implies that for whatever topic you select you cannot discuss your essay with me during office hours as you are thinking about it and writing it—such discussion I encourage.
If you have never written a philosophy essay before, or if you have not done as well as you’d like in the essays you have written, you may find the following two sites useful:
--‘Writing a Philosophy Essay’ by Ronald de Sousa
--‘Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper’ by James Pryor.
Please note what follows carefully for both essays you will write in this course.
1. Your essays should be about 2000 words in length.
2. Read your selected topics carefully, and deal with all the elements in them.
3. Your essays should be pieces of criticalwriting. By ‘critical’ I mean that you deal with the topics while keeping the following questions in mind: (a) what is strong and/or weak about the position(s) advocated and the argument(s) provided by the writer on the topic, and (b) what reasons or arguments can I (the student) give to augment this strength and/or to make clear why it is weak?
4. This critical attitude must go together with your clear exposition of the author’s position, and of the arguments the author presents for the position.
First Essay
Due date: Thursday October 6.
Your essay must be handed to me at the beginning of this class.
Write on one of the following three topics.
Topic 1.
Preamble. In our text Philosophy of Literature several of the authors concern themselves with ontology (particularly in Part iii), truth (Part iv), emotion (Part v), and truth and knowledge (Part viii). All of these matters are raised in the text’s selections from Plato’s Republic.
Topic: Critically discuss Plato’s position on literature as presented in our text (chapter 1). Then develop two arguments that Plato might give in defence of the sort of censorship implicit in his position. Are they good arguments within the confines of Plato’s position? Develop an argument to demonstrate whether or not Plato’s defence of censorship is of value beyond Plato’s position.
Topic 2.
Hirsch, in chapter 7 (‘What Isn’t Literature?’) attempts to give an account of what constitutes literature. What are his conclusions and how does he reach them? Does his position allow for a new work, such as a new novel, to be called a work of literature? For Hirsch, would Mister Pip qualify as a work of literature? Why? Or why not?
Topic 3.
Explain and critically discuss how Walton’s position in ‘Fearing Fictionally’ (Chapter 25) is related to his argument in ‘Fiction and Nonfiction’ (Chapter 20).
Second Essay.
Due date: Thursday November 3.
Your essay must be handed to me in class.
Write on one of the following three topics.
Topic 1.
In ‘Literary Works as Types’ (chapter 12) Richard Wollheim argues that a literary work is a ‘type’ and that its copies are ‘tokens’. Explain what Wollheim means by this terminology, and state the most important arguments that lead him to this conclusion about the nature of a literary work.In ‘Literature’ (Chapter 13) Urmson states that ‘The suggestion of Wollheim ... that the creative artist creates a type ... cause[s] discomfort. It is hard to see how there can be a type ... before there are any tokens’ (p. 89). Defend Wollheim against Urmson’s criticism or, alternatively, provide grounds for Urmson’s criticism.
Topic 2.
Useat least two examples or themes from Jones’ Mister Pip and show how they are helpful in illustrating aspects of any two of the following chapters: (i) our selections from Plato’s Republic, (ii) Stecker’s ‘What is Literature’, (iii) Urmson’s ‘Literature’, (iv) Searle’s ‘The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse’, and (v) Feagin’s ‘The Pleasures of Tragedy’.You may (but need not) use the same examples from Mister Pip in both of the chapters you select. Make clear howthis ‘illustrating’ is either in support, or in critique, of the chapters you selected.
Topic 3.
State and critically discuss the grounds for Wilson’s conclusion that ‘A person may learn from a novel ... if he is forced to revise or modify, e.g. his concept of “reasonable action” through a recognition of an alternative as presented in the novel’ (p. 327). Is Wilson’s conclusion vulnerable to the kind of criticism of Stolnitz’s ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art’ (chapter 41)?
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