ABSTRACT
The choice of literary form is therefore right at the center of the philosophical enterprise. Philosophy has been written in many forms. Dialogues, treatises, literary essays, meditations, journals, handbooks, chains of aphorisms, novels, plays, and 'formal' proofs have all been tried, and there are successful examples of each. Plato, Hume, Camus, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Epictetus, Wittgenstein, Sartre and Spinoza give some idea of the range of possibilities. Each form has it shortcomings, brought out starkly by second rate attempts, dialogues that dilute the arguments, treatises that are boring and obscure, essays that lack precision, formal proofs that are procrustean projects. Philosophy is not merely a type of self-improvement. Communication counts, and therefore so does the choice and execution of the literary form. On the connection between moral theory and narrative forms, parables, and 'visions' of the good life.
