Philosophical fiction
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Philosophical fiction refers to works of fiction in which a significant proportion of the work is devoted to a discussion of philosophical questions. 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 a significant proportion of science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, and Bildungsroman. The modus operandi seems to be to use a normal story to simply explain difficult and/or dark parts of human life.
Prominent philosophical fiction
There is no universally acceptable definition of philosophical fiction, but certain works would be of key importance in its history.
Many philosophers write novels, plays, or short fiction in order to demonstrate or introduce their ideas. Common ones include: Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ayn Rand, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Authors who are fans or followers certain of philosophers tend to incorporate many of their ideas in their novels, but they are not necessarily considered philosophical novels.
A borderline case is that of Plato's Socratic dialogues; while possibly based on real events, it is widely accepted that with a few exceptions (the most likely being the Apology), the dialogues were entirely Plato's creation. On the other hand, the "plot" of these dialogues consist of men discussing philosophical matters, so the degree to which they fall into what moderns would recognize as "fiction" is rather unclear.
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 and Friedrich Nietzsche. 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).
Author | Name | Date | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Anonymous (part of the Bible) | Book of Job | ~7th-4th century BCE | Early example; one of the earliest works addressing the problem of evil. The extent of Job's fictionality is still disputed within the field of Biblical criticism. |
Augustine of Hippo | De Magistro | 4th century | Early example |
Abelard | Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian | 12th century | Early example |
Ibn Tufail | Hayy ibn Yaqdhan | 12th century | Early example; explores the limits of natural theology and the Islamic concept of fitra. |
Yehuda Halevi | The Kuzari | 12th century | Early example |
Thomas More | Utopia | 1516 | Early example, first unambiguous example of utopian and dystopian fiction. |
Voltaire | Zadig | 1747 | Early example |
Voltaire | Micromegas | 1752 | |
Voltaire | Candide | 1759 | Early example |
Samuel Johnson | Rasselas | 1759 | |
Jean-Jacques 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 |
Fyodor Dostoevsky | Crime and Punishment | 1866 | Canonical |
Goethe | Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship | 1795–96 | Canonical |
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 | Brave New World | 1932 | A critique on the conflict between the human element and animal nature of man as well as the manipulative use of psychological conditioning. |
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 | 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 | A fictional drama on the process of communism represented through animals on a farm. |
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 | 1962 | A discussion of the role of free will in the context of the application of behaviorism's techniques. |
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 | |
Margaret Atwood | The Handmaid's Tale | 1985 | Dystopian feminist novel |
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. |
Gus Van Sant | Pink | 1997 | Absurdism |
Neal Stephenson | Anathem | 2008 | Includes the philosophical debate between Platonic realism and nominalism. |
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 | ||
The novels and short stories of Ursula K. Le Guin | 1959-2018 | ||
Most novels by Stanislaw Lem | 1946–2005 | ||
Most novels by Ayn Rand | 1934–82 | Objectivism | |
Novels and Plays by Samuel Beckett | 1938–1961 | Absurdism/Quasi-quietism | |
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 | |||
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 | ||
Works by Franz Kafka Prize winners | Kafkaesque Humanism and Existentialism |
See also