The philosophy paper as an experience

I'm teaching a graduate course Fiction Writing for Philosophers (syllabus here,  some videos on how to write fiction I made here, writing dialogue, idea, plot, governing idea,  character, point of view, emotion and scene building). I designed this course to help philosophy grad students to understand that philosophy can be expressed in a variety of ways, not just in the format of papers or monographs. It helps them to recognize philosophical fiction, and to write it too. 

Writing fiction is also valuable because it teaches you to write with the reader in mind.

Fiction writers must achieve two things, first, they must write a story that works. The story must be internally coherent, the elements (character, plot, governing idea, point of view, world building etc etc) must all work well together to deliver the story. Second, it must also move the audience. If the audience gets bored and zones out, or abandons your work halfway, then it didn't work for them. 

What makes a story work? Movies, novels, and other fictions as well as artworks more generally move us because they give us an experience. We want to be moved, we want to feel, be transported by the artworks we interact with. John Dewey in Art as Experience saw experience as the driving force of art making and art appreciation: "By common consent, the Parthenon is a great work of art. Yet it has esthetic standing only as the work becomes an experience for a human being."

I saw the Parthenon only once, when I was 18, on a school trip to Greece. We walked up the slope and it was very hot and dry, and none of us had even the slighted interest in ancient architecture. Moreover, the building looked unfinished, with many parts schlepped away to the British Museum, and its scaffolding were even then a near-permanent fixture. Yet, I was impressed by the building and how it was integrated in the surrounding landscape. I understood somewhat why architects, and people more generally, kept on being inspired by this building. 

What's true for artworks is also true for philosophical works. Philosophy that continues to resonate is philosophy that creates an effective experience. How often does one not encounter philosophical papers that are completely boring, that don't excite you, that you just don't care about? Sure, they might be coherent and well-researched, but if they don't do anything for the reader, if they leave the reader entirely unmoved, they have not done enough.

 

Philosophy that resonates with many readers does so, in part, by appealing to our emotions. For philosophical works, those emotions will often be epistemic, such as doubt, curiosity, and wonder. When you write fiction, say, a crime novel, you need to engage your reader's epistemic emotions. You must provide enough clues for the reader to be tantalized. You can help the reader work along, say, with Miss Marple, and your reader will feel a sense of triumph (a metacognitive emotion) when she works out who committed the crime right before Miss Marple reveals the culprit.

Similarly, a lot of fun philosophy papers start out with a seemingly intractable problem and have you go through several not entirely satisfactory solutions until, bam, the answer is revealed. The Meditations are good at this this. Written in the first person, you are close to the writer, and you go on a journey along with him from radical skepticism (which elicit negative epistemic emotions such as doubt) to a range of intricate philosophical positions about self, the world, and God, which elicit more positive epistemic emotions such as certainty. 

Not all philosophy appeals solely to epistemic emotions. Some philosophical works also engage one's moral emotions. Fiction that appeals to moral emotion presents you with morally complex situations (e.g., tele-novellas) where you get to see different points of view and motivations of various characters. They offer the viewer the opportunity to feel vicarious shame, moral disapprobation, schadenfreude, and so much more. Philosophy can do this too, as you follow along thought experiments of trolleys or drowning children, or a toddler about to fall into a well. Our moral emotions, which (by evolutionary accounts) serve to help us live better in groups are powerfully engaged in a wide range of philosophical works, including in ethics, social epistemology, and political philosophy. Take, as one example, Singer's Famine, Affluence and Morality (1972). Though Singer holds back and does not blatantly write emotionally, the overall effect is still one that stirs moral emotions in a powerful way. Take, as another example, Kate Manne's Down Girl, which powerfully grips us with examples of misogyny and male entitlement in a wide range of situations.

Then there are philosophical works that appeal to our sense of fun and playfulness. We like fictions that are lighthearted and comedy, and very often the best of these also offer us some profound insights along the way. Zhuangzi is getting more appreciation in western philosophy departments, and I think in part it must be because he is so fun and playful. The way he tackles a serious topic like disability or death with that mixture of humor and profundity makes reading the Zhuangzi such a satisfying experience. 

Finally, we have existential emotions, about our future selves, about who we are, who we want to be, our broader society. Speculative fiction is particularly good at this. It makes us ponder about that the deepest philosophical questions. For one such example, see this short story by AT Greenblatt Give the Family my Love. Philosophy does the same. I am thinking of L.A. Paul's Transformative experience, which makes us think deeper of who we are and how experiences change us, and of Kate Norlock's recent paper Perpetual struggle. 

I didn't provide an exhaustive range of examples of how philosophy can engage our emotions, but just give a flavor of the different ways in which philosophy can engage the reader by providing an experience.  It does so by eliciting emotions, by taking the reader on a journey, and by changing the reader (subtly or more) throughout that journey. 

So, as my students learn the craft of fiction, I hope that writing stories also helps them to think about writing effectively for an audience more generally: when you write philosophy, its value derives from the extent to which it becomes an experience for a human being. 

Comments

[Fiction writers are cool]

This is really cool! It would be a great sort of course to co-teach with an expert in teaching & writing fiction.