David Rudrum Ridvan Askin and Frida Beckman New Directions in Philosophy and Literature (original) (raw)

2021, Philosophy in Review

The contemporary academic world offers many heterogeneous Gestalten through which it is possible to design histories of the theoretical and practical intersections between literature and philosophy. So, some scholars will write their histories according to syntagmatic forms as 'Philosophy of Literature,' others to 'Literary Philosophy,' and others even to 'Metaphysical Literature' or 'Philosophical Literature'; each essentially pointing to an idea of literature as an object of philosophy and philosophy as a possible thematic object of literary elaboration. New Directions in Philosophy and Literature, edited by David Rudrum, Ridvan Askin, and Frida Beckman, decidedly contributes to a revaluation of the traditional conceptual intersections between literature and philosophy intended by these syntagms. Through diverse subtle forms, these three Gestalten frequently are associated with two fundamental questions. If philosophy claims to interpret literature, it will be necessary to produce a 'scheme' that can be a relational hinge between literary and philosophical languages. Therefore, some philosophers assume or argue that philosophy cannot be reduced to literature to ponder it better philosophically. Furthermore, if literature claims to teach us something, which would presuppose a central role for truth, it will be a philosophical content for literature. On the contrary, those who appraise it beyond mere contingent cognitive benefits will not pursue veiled philosophical meaning among literary pages. Neither do they require that writers dress up these intentional philosophical contents into literary robes. So, the long philosophical and literary traditions ever presuppose heated polemics on the nature of knowledge and art. New Directions in Philosophy and Literature holds that it is theoretically fruitful to transcend that canonical, hermetic classification of literature, on the one hand, and philosophy, on the other. To do that, the cultural horizon assumed by the book is that of the past, the meanwhile, and the aftermath of postmodernity. So, the book does not disguise, but, on the contrary, defends its elective affinities. Like Franz Kafka, according to J. L. Borges, New Directions creates its precursors. This book aims to break the hierarchies involved in the above syntagmatic forms of tradition, pretending to be an alternative to analytic, gender, cognitive, and narratological approaches to literature. Therefore, unlike what happens in the Anglo-Saxon canonical philosophical traditions, the chosen precursors do not engage with debates that presuppose no prior certainty about the cognitive potential of literature. So, New Directions defends the significant role of literature in our comprehension of the contemporary world. That is the main aim of the book. In this sense, those who expect a mere book on 'Philosophy of Literature' will be disappointed and will probably question their assumptions. The long (almost five hundred pages) book consists of twenty-three chapters organized in six parts or sections with no obvious thematic connections. So, in some way, every part of this book is in its own right a book in itself. Because of the work's length and the heterogenous thematics, every set of chapters has its own 'Editor's Introduction,' which balances out the thematic jumps from one set of chapters to the others employing mild cross-references. The same could be said about Claire Colebrook's General Introduction, 'Opposition of the Faculties, Philosophy's Literary Impossibility,' because it is a thematic introduction with no specific connection with the following chapters, and in so doing be regarded as a chapter in its own right.