This course in the philosophy of literature explores the issue of whether reading literary fiction offers any distinctive cognitive benefits, that is to say what do we learn to do better or quicker from reading poetry, plays and novels that we can’t learn elsewhere?
In session 1 we shall outline the concerns raised by philosophers from Plato to the present on using literary fiction as a source of cognitive gain. For instance, that the fictional status of literary fiction is not a reliable source of knowledge; that literary fiction appeals to the emotions rather than reason, and that a literary style of writing distracts from or is irrelevant to genuine cognitive gain.
In session 2 we shall explore a range of recent responses defending the cognitive value of reading literary fiction from the works of: Hilary Putnam, Eileen John, Jenefer Robinson, Catherine Elgin, John Gibson, Dorothy Walsh and Martha Nussbaum. We shall discuss tensions between these approaches and look at some questions that these literary cognitivist accounts raise.
Many philosophers defending the cognitive value of reading literary fiction look to understanding as the cognitive gain in question but no one has spelt out what is meant by understanding in this context. I shall sketch a disjunctivist account of understanding in session 3 and make explicit how this account of understanding relates to our reading literary fiction.
In session 4 we shall examine how the reader’s engagement with literary devices such as metaphor and irony help stimulate understanding in the senses identified previously in session 3. Session 4 provides an opportunity to look at specific case studies from a selection of plays, poems and literary prose.
In the final session we shall address the question of how the reader can bridge the gap between gaining understanding from reading literary fiction and gaining an understanding of extra-textual reality. I shall make the case that a close reading of a work enables us to exercise certain skills of cognitive benefit that can also be exercised in the world beyond the text.
The philosophy of literature: literary fiction and understanding stands as an independent course but makes an excellent complement to Hc1 The philosophy of literature: literary fiction and morality.
Learning outcomes
- To be able to give an account of the salient arguments in various issues in the philosophy of literature;
- To be able to advance and defend a given standpoint on these issues;
- To be confident to apply certain generic philosophical skills to subject matter beyond the remit of this course.
