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Philosophy in Literature Syracuse University SURFACE Syracuse University Press Libraries 1949 Philosophy in Literature Julian L. Ross Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/supress Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Ross, Julian L., "Philosophy in Literature" (1949). Syracuse University Press. 3. https://surface.syr.edu/supress/3 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Libraries at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Syracuse University Press by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. OU_168123>3 ib VOOK t'l hvtent <J/ie tyovevnment //te ^United cf ai o an f.r^^fnto iii and yccdwl c/ tie llnited faaart/* *J/ie L/eofile of jf'ti OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CallNo. 9ol//k?/^ Accession No. < Author ""jj^vv JLj. This book should be returned on or before the date last marked below. PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE JULIAN L. ROSS Professor of English, Allegheny College SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS IN COOPERATION WITH ALLEGHENY COLLEGE Copyright, 1949 SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS Only literature can describe experience, for the excellent reason that the terms of experience are moral and literary from the beginning. Mind is incorrigibly poetical: not be- cause it is not attentive to material facts and practical exigencies, but because, being intensely attentive to them, it turns them into pleasures and pains, and into many-colored ideas. GEORGE SANTAYANA TO CAROL MOODEY ROSS INTRODUCTION The most important questions of our time are philosoph- ical. All about us we see the clash of ideas and ideologies. Yet the formal study of philosophy has been losing rather than gaining ground. There is increasing interest in the issues, but up to the present there has been no corresponding increase in their systematic study. In many American colleges the work in philosophy attracts fewer and fewer students. Because philosophy is in the doldrums, I have wondered for some time what should be done to breathe into it fresh life. One idea that appeals strongly to me is to invite brilliant teachers in other fields to become students of philosophy and thus encourage a marriage of economics and philosophy, political science and philosophy, art and philosophy, and last but not least, literature and philosophy. This book is a kind of Exhibit A of this approach to the problem. Julian Lenhart Ross is one of the most gifted under- graduate teachers I have known. He is a graduate of Allegheny College in the Class of 1923, and he returned to the faculty of that institution after taking his doctorate at Harvard in IX 1927. He is now Professor of English. Because of his remark- able success as a teacher, I felt confident that if he could be persuaded to teach a course in philosophy, his classroom would be crowded. When we first discussed the matter, he volunteered the suggestion that if I would teach the history of philosophy, he would join the class as an auditor and, if all went well, might then try his hand at a course introducing students to certain perennial problems of philosophy through the eyes of literature. I still remember my attempts to make the history of philosophy interesting not only to a number of very superior students, but to the brightest member of a distinguished faculty. What is more memorable, however, is that the following year Professor Ross offered for the first time his course in philosophy and literature. The hundreds of students who have been privileged to sit at his feet treasure the memory of this course as the richest intellectual experience of their undergraduate years. We have encouraged Professor Ross to put some of his material in book form, and we are pleased with the result. This is a book that should appeal to thoughtful men and women. It is an appropriate text for departments of philoso- phy, but it will probably reach more readers and inspire more interest in philosophical ideas if it is introduced by a particu- larly talented member of the English department. There are many roads to "that dear delight" which is the study of philosophy. This is by no means the only one. For our generation it is not a well-traveled road, but it is a highway through a countryside rich in history. It leads us through the territory of the classics. It has unusual vistas. It has enduring interest. Its charm will be felt by many who have resisted the lure of other paths that lead to truth and wisdom. WILLIAM P. TOLLEY CONTENTS CHAPTER PACE INTRODUCTION ix I PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE .... 1 II CAKES AND ALE 12 III STOIC ENDURANCE 39 IV THE RATIONAL IDEAL 69 V THE PITFALLS OF CHRISTIANITY . 106 VI THE NATURE OF THINGS 135 VII OPTIMIST AND PESSIMIST 186 VIII Vicious MOLE OF NATURE .... 233 NOTES 277 CHAPTER ONE PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE SUPPOSE that some morning you should awaken in a place you have never seen before; every- thing is new to you. Around you is a strange field, with unfamiliar creatures moving in it. You see objects which you do not recognize, and hear sounds which you cannot interpret. What would you do? If you would do nothing at all, but merely go to sleep again or sit inertly all day waiting for something to happen, then this book will have no interest for you. But it is doubtful if such would be your reaction. Most persons under these circumstances would begin to explore, would feel a strong interest in finding out where they were, and why. They would be a little frightened and intensely curious. They would examine the objects and creatures around them, try to get into communication with someone, look for clues that might account for their presence in this environment. In other words, they would become philosophers. For philosophy is simply exploration of a strange universe. Every person, at least once, has the experience that has just been mentioned. Not in the morning of a single day, 2 PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE but in the morning of life, he finds himself in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unaccountable phenomena and creatures of whose purpose he is ignorant. If he feels curiosity and sets out to quench it, then he takes the first step in philosophy. He can go as far as he likes, for the exploration is endless. The more intelligent he is, the more questions he asks and the less satisfied he is with conventional answers. It is this capacity for wonder at his own existence that distinguishes man from the animals around him. From birth to death he never stops asking questions; and only after long experience and many disappointments does he realize the difficulty and the fascination of his inquiry. Of course he never succeeds in reaching the one and final answer. Instead, he discovers a great many incomplete explanations of the world, often impressive but also often flatly contradictory. At this he may become discouraged, and decide to imitate the cow, who looks satisfied and does not seem worried by anything. He finds, however, that this is more easily said than done. After one has tasted the delight of intellectual curiosity, a placid bovine existence is not easy to maintain. In Somerset Maugham's novel Of Human Bondage, Philip Carey has this experience. He reads a number of philosophers in the hope of finding an answer to all his perplexities. Observing that each philosopher refutes the ideas of the preceding ones, whom their successor con- siders misguided fools, Philip concludes that philosophy is a matter of temperament, that all ideas are equally true and equally false, and that the best policy is to act on almost any rough working-rule of conduct and ignore the whole matter. Nevertheless he continues to philosophize in spite of himself, and questions concerning the meaning of life are never completely absent from his mind. To abandon philosophy because it cannot solve the riddle of the universe is like saying that we shall relinquish all friendship because none of our friends is perfect. PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE 3 Students are often puzzled to distinguish between philosophy and other subjects, particularly such fields as science, religion, and art; each of these seems to be an attempt of human beings to find meaning in life. Is not science typically a form of exploration, motivated by curiosity? Does not religion confidently search for a benevolent plan in a chaotic universe? Is not art merely another form of the quest for meaning, a meaning more rich and significant because it is discerned by a sensitive imagination? It is true that each of these kinds of exploration furnishes material for philosophy; but philosophy in its own way includes them all, and more too. The business of the philosopher is to take everything into consideration. He must try to reconcile all contradictions and paradoxes. He must use the discoveries of science, the existence of the "scientific method," and also the fact that most people make decisions on a quite unscien- tific basis. He must allow for the existence of the .religious emotion, that sense of dependence on a divine being which exerts a transforming power on many lives; but at the same time he must recognize that in some persons this emotion is entirely absent, and in others so distorted that it causes evil instead of good. He must take into account as data the existence of creative art and also the scorn with which "practical" men regard the artist. In short, he must make sense of a world which at every step contradicts itself, which appears at the same time good and evil, planned and acci- dental, progressive and decadent.
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