What is the relation between literature and philosophy and what can we learn from it? Is there something about the novel and its language, fiction and narrative that separates it from philosophical litterature? In what way is knowledge about this useful to us, and is it possible to use fiction for the understanding of philosophy? This study makes an attempt to shed some light on the by no means obviuos distinction between philosophy and literature. The aim is to understand what, if in fact there is something that separates philosophy from literature, there is about the distinction that makes it possible for us to separate the ideas in literature from philosophical ideas, and in what way we can use the novel, or fiction in its widest meaning, to understand philosophy. When teaching philosophy you´re often required to make the abstract tangible. But if there´s a misconception about the distinction in what makes philosophical literature philosophical, then maybe there is something to learn from literature, or, at least, something about the fiction and its aesthetics, that makes it easier for us to relate to and understand, for example, the theories that are debated in moral philosophy. There are some philosophers who have used the form of fiction to make their thoughts on philosophical questions understandable. In fact you still find literary aesthetics in essays, reports and articles written in the subject of philosophy, but also in most of the scientifical studies presented worldwide. As there still is something about the words and the language that we already know of that makes it easier for us when trying to make the abstract understandable, than it would if we were constantly required to make up new words just to explain what we mean. The metaphor is, for example, very useful when explaining the phenomenon that we call "black holes". Not to mention the "quark", which was founded by Murray Gell-Mann, but borrowed from a poem by James Joyce. There is something about the language and our understanding that just makes it easier to use what we already know of, when trying to explain our ideas. The leg of a chair isn´t in fact a leg, but in a way the four sticks, that are used to keep the board, or the flat thing we in fact sit on, from falling to the ground, resembles the things the connects our feet to the rest of our body. So, evidently there is something about literature, and the use of the language that we already understand, that makes it a great way to make our ideas intelligible. What is it, if we already know that many philosophers, Plato, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Sartre e.t.c., used literature, or at least literary aesthaetics, as a way to make their philisophical ideas intelligible, that justifies separating philosophy from literature? Isn´t there in fact something about the distinction that is rather unclear, and wouldn´t knowledge about this be quite useful when understanding and teaching philosophy. This study attempts to find out, as one investigates the theories behind it, and put them to test using "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky when teaching moral philosophy to a class of philosophy students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:vxu-472 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Ekroth, Isak |
| Publisher | Växjö universitet, Institutionen för humaniora |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | LÄRARUTBILDNINGEN, ; |
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