MetaFilter posts tagged with philosophy and literature

David Foster Wallace on Fatalism

homunculus — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 09:05:19 -0800

Consider the Philosopher. The early metaphysical investigations of David Foster Wallace.

The lively, compelling, rarely-updated Waggish

colinmarshall — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:43:12 -0800

Waggish would be one of the choicest blogs around if he updated more, but I suppose I can settle for what there is. If you've never read it, you'll know how good it is when I tell you about a few of the coolest posts: an inquest on "left-brained" literature, a short review of John Williams' Stoner, an appreciation of the great Shohei Imamura and three part coverage of the ultimate film, Béla Tarr's Sátántangó.

Entitled Opinions, the smartest podcast

colinmarshall — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:00:09 -0800

Stanford Italian literature professor Robert Harrison does a conversational show on KZSU, the university radio station, called Entitled Opinions (on Life and Literature), which is also distributed as one of the most fascinating, engaging podcasts in any possible universe. Choicest topics include mimetic desire, Proust, the inflationary universe, 1910, American writers in Paris and the history of the book.

Shakespeare and philosophy

painquale — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:38:38 -0800

Martha Nussbaum reviews three recent books on Shakespeare and philosophy. The essay offers an excellent analysis of love in Antony and Cleopatra and Othello, and an excellent discussion of the interaction between philosophy and literature. From the essay: "To make any contribution worth caring about, a philosopher's study of Shakespeare should do three things. First and most centrally, it should really do philosophy, and not just allude to familiar philosophical ideas and positions. It should pursue tough questions and come up with something interesting and subtle--rather than just connecting Shakespeare to this or that idea from Philosophy 101. A philosopher reading Shakespeare should wonder, and ponder, in a genuinely philosophical way. Second, it should illuminate the world of the plays, attending closely enough to language and to texture that the interpretation changes the way we see the work, rather than just uses the work as grist for some argumentative mill. And finally, such a study should offer some account of why philosophical thinking needs to turn to Shakespeare's plays, or to works like them. Why must the philosopher care about these plays? Do they supply to thought something that a straightforward piece of philosophical prose cannot supply, and if so, what?" There is some discussion of the piece here.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

John of Michigan — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:14:41 -0800

Sexual Fables. Western philosophy, literature, and thought from a distaff point of view. Full of multidisciplinary goodness, and the intertextuality is pretty neat. The art's pretty good, too.

Tao Te Ching in many languages

Wolfdog — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 06:35:21 -0800

The Tao Te Ching in dozens of languages and translations, with a lovely side-by-side comparison tool.

3quarksdaily

panoptican — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 01:34:16 -0800

3quarksdaily. Just another blog, sure, but a good one. 3quarksdaily is a filter blog much like our very own, but with only 15 users (and an editor). As they say on their about page "On this website, my guest authors and editors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating." The do an admirable job.

Books Books Books

dame — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 09:14:40 -0800

Question for a gray Saturday. What is literature for ? Three litblogs -- Conversational Reading, The Reading Experience, and Leonard Bast -- discuss. Curl up and consider.

Pontius Pilate contracted his brows, and his hand rose to his forehead...

matteo — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:26:17 -0800

"Jesus?" he murmured, "Jesus -- of Nazareth?..." Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea, is the only historical figure named in the Nicene Creed -- Coptic saint or eternally damned, his role in the greatest story ever told has been debated by many of history's greatest minds: St Augustine, Dante Alighieri, Tintoretto, John Ruskin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Monty Python. Unfortunately, there is very little historical evidence about him. His role in the death of a certain charismatic Galilean healer and apocalyptic preacher is still being debated today by theologians and historians alike. He is also, of course, the main character of The Procurator of Judea, the classic short story (complete text in main link) by Anatole France. (France's magnificent story has lately been tragically neglected by publishers, even if the author was one of his era's most acclaimed writers in the world -- he won the Nobel Prize in 1921 over Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, and Proust, and when he died in 1924, hundreds of thousands of people followed his funeral procession through Paris). These last 2,000 years of fascination with Pilatus can be explained, some argue... (more inside, for those unwilling to wash their hands of this post)

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz,

mdn — Sat, 29 May 2004 11:41:19 -0800

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz known also as Witkacy, was an absur dist playwright, a painter, a philosopher, an aesthetician, a novelist, and generally a prolific artist since about the age of 8. He lived from 1885 to 1939, and often has just the right mix of sharp wit, deep insight, and self-reflective irony.

Philip K. Dick Official Site

paladin — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 07:56:22 -0800

The Philip K. Dick Offical Site has opened: relevant not just because the movie Paycheck is coming out this month (based on a short story of his), but because we live in a Dickian world. As he put it, "We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives. I distrust their power. It is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing."