Strictly speaking, the philosophy of literature is a branch of
aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that deals with the question, "What is
art"? Much of aesthetic philosophy has traditionally focused on the plastic arts or
music, however, at the expense of the verbal arts. Much traditional discussion of aesthetic philosophy seeks to establish criteria of artistic quality that are indifferent to the subject matter being depicted. Since all literary works, almost by definition, contain notional content, aesthetic theories that rely on purely formal qualities tend to overlook literature. The very existence of
narrative raises philosophical issues. In narrative, a creator can embody, and readers be led to imagine,
fictional characters, and even
fantastic creatures or technologies. The ability of the human mind to imagine, and even to experience
empathy with, these fictional characters is itself revealing about the nature of the human mind. Some fiction can be thought of as a sort of a
thought experiment in
ethics: it describes fictional characters, their
motives, their actions, and the consequences of their actions. It is in this light that some philosophers have chosen various narrative forms to teach their philosophy (
see below).
Literature and language Plato, for instance, believed that literary culture had a strong impact on the ethical outlook of its consumers. In
The Republic, Plato displays a strong hostility to the contents of the culture of his period, and proposes a strong
censorship of popular literature in his
utopia. More recently, however, philosophers of various stripes have taken different and less hostile approaches to literature. Since the work of the
British Empiricists and
Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, Western philosophy has long been preoccupied with a fundamental question of
epistemology: the relationship between ideas in the human mind and the external world, if such a world exists. In more recent years, these epistemological concerns have shifted toward an extended discussion of
words and meaning, exploring the possibility of
language bridging the gap between minds. This cluster of issues concerning the meaning of language and "
writings" is sometimes referred to as
the linguistic turn. As such, techniques and tools developed for
literary criticism and
literary theory rose to greater prominence in Western philosophy of the late twentieth century. Philosophers of various stripes paid more attention to literature than their predecessors did. Some sought to examine the question of whether it was in fact truly possible to communicate using words, whether it was possible for an author's intended meaning to be communicated to a reader. Others sought to use literary works as examples of contemporary
culture, and sought to reveal unconscious attitudes they felt present in these works for social criticism.
The truth of fiction Literary works also pose issues concerning
truth and the
philosophy of language. In educated opinion, at least, it is commonly reputed as true that
Sherlock Holmes lived in London. (see David Lewis 'Truth in Fiction', American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 15. No. 1, January 1978) It is also considered true that
Samuel Pepys lived in London. Yet Sherlock Holmes never lived anywhere at all; he is a fictional character. Samuel Pepys, contrarily, is judged to have been a real person. Contemporary interests in Holmes and Pepys share strong similarities; the only reason why anyone knows either of their names is because of an abiding interest in reading about their alleged deeds and words. These two statements would appear to belong to two different orders of truth. Further problems arise concerning the
truth value of statements about fictional worlds and characters that can be implied but are nowhere explicitly stated by the sources for our knowledge about them, such as
Sherlock Holmes had only one head or
Sherlock Holmes never traveled to the moon. ==The literature of philosophy==