ABSTRACT

In this provocative new examination of the philosophical, moral and religious significance of literature, Michael Weston explores the role of literature in both analytic and continental traditions. He initiates a dialogue between them and investigates the growing importance of these issues for major contemporary thinkers.
Each chapter explores a philosopher or literary figure who has written on the relation between literature and the good life, such as Derrida, Kierkegaard, Murdoch and Blanchot. Challenging and insightful, Philosophy, Literature and the Human Good is ideal for all students of philosophy and literature.

chapter 1|18 pages

LIFE AS ART

Kant, Schlegel, Nietzsche

chapter 2|18 pages

GEORGES BATAILLE

The impossible

chapter 3|14 pages

MAURICE BLANCHOT

Literature’s space

chapter 4|18 pages

JACQUES DERRIDA

The staging of deconstruction

chapter 5|15 pages

IRIS MURDOCH

The transcendent good

chapter 6|16 pages

MARTHA NUSSBAUM

Moral fortune

chapter 7|14 pages

RICHARD RORTY

Philosophy as literature

chapter 8|18 pages

STANLEY CAVELL

Language, therapy and perfectionism

chapter 9|8 pages

A KIERKEGAARDIAN INTERVENTION

chapter 10|16 pages

D. Z. PHILLIPS

The mediation of sense

chapter 11|21 pages

A CONCLUDING READING

Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim