Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and LiteratureOxford University Press, 1992 M04 2 - 432 pages This volume brings together Nussbaum's published papers on the relationship between literature and philosophy, especially moral philosophy. The papers, many of them previously inaccessible to non-specialist readers, deal with such fundamental issues as the relationship between style and content in the exploration of ethical issues; the nature of ethical attention and ethical knowledge and their relationship to written forms and styles; and the role of the emotions in deliberation and self-knowledge. Nussbaum investigates and defends a conception of ethical understanding which involves emotional as well as intellectual activity, and which gives a certain type of priority to the perception of particular people and situations rather than to abstract rules. She argues that this ethical conception cannot be completely and appropriately stated without turning to forms of writing usually considered literary rather than philosophical. It is consequently necessary to broaden our conception of moral philosophy in order to include these forms. Featuring two new essays and revised versions of several previously published essays, this collection attempts to articulate the relationship, within such a broader ethical inquiry, between literary and more abstractly theoretical elements. |
Contents
An Aristotelian Conception of Private and Public Rationality | |
Plato on Commensurability and Desire | |
Jamess The Golden Bowl and Literature as Moral Philosophy | |
Literature and the Moral Imagination | |
Literary Theory and Ethical Theory | |
The Princess Casamassima and the Political Imagination | |
Reading for Life | |
Fictions of the Soul | |
Loves Knowledge | |
Becketts Genealogy of Love | |
Romantic Rightness and Platonic Aspiration | |
Love and the Moral Point of View | |
Transcending Humanity | |
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Common terms and phrases
activity akrasia Alcibiades argues argument Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle’s belief Booth cataleptic chap character choice claim commensurability commitments complex conception concerned concrete connection criticism David David Copperfield deliberation desire discussion distinct elements emotions erotic essay ethical example experience express F. R. Leavis fact feeling Finely Aware Flawed Crystals Fragility Golden Bowl Henry James Hilary Putnam human Hyacinth imagination important insist intellectual James’s judgment literary literature live Maggie Maggie’s Marcel moral philosophy narrative nature norm novel object Odysseus one’s particular passion Perceptive Equilibrium person Phaedrus philosophical Plato political practical wisdom Princess Casamassima principles Protagoras Proust question rational reader reading reason relation relationship response Richard Wollheim role romantic love seems sense shows simply situation social Socrates sort soul speak Stanley Cavell Steerforth story Strether structure style tells theory things thought transcendence truth understanding vision writing