Philosophical fiction
Philosophical fiction refers to the class of works of fiction which devote a significant portion of their content to the sort of questions normally addressed in philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical fiction works would include the so-called novel of ideas, including some science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, and the Bildungsroman.
| Philosophical fiction | |
|---|---|
| Features | Significant proportion devoted to discussion of questions normally addressed in discursive philosophy |
| Subgenres | |
| Novel of ideas | |
Philosophical fiction
- This is only a list of some major philosophical fiction. For all philosophical novels, see Category:Philosophical novels.
There is no universally accepted definition of philosophical fiction, but a sampling of notable works can help to outline its history.
Some philosophers write novels, plays, or short fiction in order to demonstrate or introduce their ideas. Common examples include: Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ayn Rand, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Authors who admire certain philosophers may incorporate their ideas into the principal themes or central narratives of novels. Some examples include: The Moviegoer (Kierkegaard), Wittgenstein's Mistress (Wittgenstein), and Speedboat (post-structuralism).
A special case is that of Plato's Socratic dialogues. While possibly based on real events, such as the trial of Socrates, it is widely accepted that the dialogues were entirely Plato's creation. On the other hand, the "plots" of these dialogues consist of men discussing philosophical matters, so the degree to which they fall into what moderns would recognize as "fiction" is unclear.
| Author | Name | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Augustine | De Magistro | 4th century | Early example |
| Abelard | Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian | 12th century | Early example |
| Ibn Tufail | Philosophus Autodidactus | 12th century[1][2] | Early example |
| Yehuda Halevi | The Kuzari | 12th century | Early example; Arabic |
| Thomas More | Utopia | 1516 | Early example |
| Voltaire | Zadig | 1747 | Early example |
| Voltaire | Candide | 1759 | Early example |
| J.-J. Rousseau | Julie, or the New Heloise | 1761 | Early example |
| James Hogg | The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner | 1824 | |
| Walter Pater | Marius the Epicurean | 1885 | |
| Thomas Carlyle | Sartor Resartus | 1833–34 | Canonical |
| Goethe | Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship | 1795–96 | Canonical |
| Fiodor Dostoevsky | Crime and Punishment | 1795–96 | Canonical. It discusses the morality and ethics of murder. |
| Leo Tolstoy | War and Peace | 1869 | Canonical |
| Giacomo Leopardi | Small Moral Works | 1827 | Philosophical stories that were greatly enjoyed even by Arthur Schopenhauer. |
| Robert Musil | The Man Without Qualities | 1930–43 | Canonical |
| Milan Kundera | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | 1984 | |
| Aldous Huxley | After Many a Summer | 1939 | |
| Aldous Huxley | Island | 1962 | |
| C. S. Lewis | Space Trilogy | 1938, 1943, 1945 | A critique of Stalinist-style socialism. |
| Søren Kierkegaard | Diary of a Seducer | 1843 | A novel in the highly literary philosophical work Either/Or. |
| Friedrich Nietzsche | Thus Spoke Zarathustra | 1885 | Perhaps the most well-known example of a modern philosophical novel. |
| Leo Tolstoy | Resurrection | 1899 | |
| Samuel Beckett | Waiting for Godot | 1952 | One of the most well-known philosophical plays of the twentieth century. |
| Louis-Ferdinand Céline | Journey to the End of the Night | 1932 | |
| Marcel Proust | In Search of Lost Time | 1913–1927 | |
| Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | The Little Prince | 1943 | |
| André Malraux | Man's Fate | 1933 | |
| Thomas Mann | The Magic Mountain | 1924 | |
| Franz Kafka | The Trial | 1925 | |
| George Orwell | Animal Farm | 1945 | |
| B. F. Skinner | Walden Two | 1948 | |
| George Orwell | Nineteen Eighty-Four | 1949 | A critique of totalitarianism as well as a discourse on the manipulative use of language. |
| Anthony Burgess | A Clockwork Orange (novel) | 1962 | A discussion of the role of free will in the context of the application of behaviorism's tecniques. |
| Philip K. Dick | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | 1968 | |
| Philip K. Dick | A Scanner Darkly | 1977 | |
| Philip K. Dick | VALIS | 1981 | A novel version of his longer non-fiction book The Exegesis, outlining his intense interest in the nature of reality, metaphysics and religion. |
| Jean-Paul Sartre | Nausea | 1938 | |
| Jean-Paul Sartre | No Exit | 1944 | An existentialist play outlining Sartrean philosophy. |
| Jean-Paul Sartre | The Devil and the Good Lord | 1951 | An existentialist play outlining Sartrean philosophy. |
| Ralph Ellison | Invisible Man | 1952 | Existentialism in America. |
| Simone de Beauvoir | She Came to Stay | 1943 | An existential novel outlining Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy. |
| Simone de Beauvoir | Les Bouches inutiles | 1944 | An existential play outlining Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy. |
| Simone de Beauvoir | All Men are Mortal | 1946 | An existential novel outlining Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy. |
| Osamu Dazai | No Longer Human | 1948 | |
| Walker Percy | The Moviegoer | 1961 | An existential novel outlining Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy. |
| Yukio Mishima | The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea | 1963 | |
| José Lezama Lima | Paradiso (novel) | 1966 | Latin American Boom novel that explores desire in pre-revolution Cuba. |
| Robert M. Pirsig | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance | 1974 | Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality |
| Renata Adler | Speedboat | 1976 | |
| David Markson | Wittgenstein's Mistress | 1988 | An experimental novel that demonstrates Wittgenstein's philosophy of language; stylistic similarities to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. |
| Jostein Gaarder | Sophie's World | 1991 | |
| David Foster Wallace | Infinite Jest | 1996 | Criticizes Poststructuralism/Postmodernism; influenced by Wittgenstein & Existentialism; introduces Metamodernism/Post-postmodernism. |
| Arthur Asa Berger | Postmortem for a Postmodernist | 1997 | A murder mystery that explores postmodernism. |
| Neal Stephenson | Anathem | 2008 | Includes the philosophical debate between Platonic realism and nominalism. |
| Giannina Braschi | United States of Banana | 2011 | Based on text from Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine, the novel discuss eros, liberty, independence, Puerto Rican sovereignty. Socrates, Diotima, and Zarathusta are characters.[3][4] Postmodern philosophy/post-postmodernism. |
| André Alexis | Fifteen Dogs | 2015 | Winner of the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize, this novel explores faith, place, love, power and hatred through the eyes and experiences of fifteen dogs endowed with human intelligence. |
| Most novels by Albert Camus | Absurdism | ||
| Fiction by the Marquis de Sade | 1740–1814 | Atheism, Nihilism, Libertinism | |
| Most novels by Franz Kafka | Existential Nihilism | ||
| Most novels by Hermann Hesse | 1904–53 | ||
| Most novels by Stanislaw Lem | 1946–2005 | ||
| Most novels by Ayn Rand | 1934–82 | Objectivism | |
| Plays by Samuel Beckett | 1938–1961 | Absurdism | |
| Novels by Iris Murdoch | 1953–97 | ||
| Novels by Anthony Burgess | 1956–93 | ||
| Novels by Simone de Beauvoir | Existentialism, feminism | ||
| Novels by Jean-Paul Sartre | Existentialism | ||
| Novels by Andre Malraux | |||
| Novels by Marcel Proust[5] | |||
| Novels by Stendhal | |||
| Novels by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | 1846–81 | Existentialism | |
| Novels by G. K. Chesterton | 1874–1936 | ||
| Novels by Clarice Lispector | |||
| The stories of Jorge Luis Borges | Philosophical idealism, eternal recurrence, eternalism | ||
| The novels of Umberto Eco | Semiotics | ||
| The novels of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein |
Atheism; Feminism | ||
See also
References
- Jon Mcginnis, Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources, p. 284, Hackett Publishing Company, ISBN 0-87220-871-0.
- Samar Attar, The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence on Modern Western Thought, Lexington Books, ISBN 0-7391-1989-3.
- Gonzalez, Madelena. ""United States of Banana (2011), Elizabeth Costello (2003) and Fury (2001): Portrait of the Writer as the 'Bad Subject'of Globalisation."". Études britanniques contemporaines. Revue de la Société dʼétudes anglaises contemporaines 46 (2014).
- Mendoza de Jesus, Ronald (2020). "Free-dom: United States of Banana and the Limits of Sovereignty," Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi. Aldama, Frederick Luis, ed. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-4618-2.
- Joshua Landy, Philosophy As Fiction: Self, Deception, and Knowledge in Proust, Oxford University Press (2004)
External links
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