Introduction
Literary fiction, in its millennia of development, has developed a separate language, referred to as artistic language, from which representatives of other fields of cultural activity—philosophers in particular—have drawn extensively for centuries. Reflecting on culture without considering the area of interaction and interfacing between fiction and philosophy, that crucial component of culture, would be incomplete, for it omits essential manifestations. Thus the need for systematic research at the borderline between literary studies and philosophical sciences, aimed at a methodological and theoretical broadening of the field of analysis of language and mind precisely from literary and philosophical perspectives. Research conducted where the two fields conjoin, oriented towards developing innovative, useful research tools for both disciplines, corresponds through its inter- and transdisciplinary character to the idea of broadening and transgressing boundaries among the humanities.
Studies understood in this way grow out of the conviction, comparative at its core, that the development of knowledge often takes place as a result of the interaction between various areas of human intellectual and creative activity. This proximity stimulates the blooming of numerous fields of knowledge, as it fosters marking of similarities and becoming aware of differences, as well as defining historically changeable relations between these practices. It often enables identification of new research problems, the emergence of which can be attributed to fields overlapping that have generally been considered separate. Such is the situation in the case of literature and philosophy. Historically fluctuating couplings and interferences between the two have constituted an inexhaustible source of cognitive exploration since antiquity, which don’t have to be a negative phenomenon, the result of uncontrolled associations, but instead have and often do become a driving force for progress in literary and philosophical studies. These relations have been and remain diversified.1 For example, in Plato’s viewpoint they were boiled down to the negation of poetry in favor of philosophy, as we know, and a desire to exclude poets from the republic.2 These relations gained a genetic character in La Scienzia nuova by Giambattista Vico, who was convinced of poetry’s precedence/superiority in relation to philosophy, seeing the former as an indispensable condition of the latter’s creation.3 In Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics, which brought to the fore the division between content and form, philosophy and literature were treated as complementary.4 In works by Novalis and Schlegel, the two functioned together in an affirmative way as sym-poetry and sym-philosophy, supported by their very conviction of inseparability.5
These diverse relations, regardless of their nature and associated values, should be the subject of empirical studies, inspiring theoretical reflection and requiring that questions be addressed that include methods and categories through which to investigate and describe the issues raised above. They also encourage reflections on the scope of comparative studies conducted at the boundaries between literature and philosophy, to ponder limitations of particular methods and possibilities of employing selected categories in studying the subjects of both disciplines.
Attempting to set the methodological and categorial framework for contextual studies on relations between literature and philosophy requires that the postulate be rejected that philosophy in all its varieties and manifestations always comprises exact knowledge, for that excludes its relations with, for instance, poetry. Several other assumptions must also be made. First, philosophy and literature share the common medium of language, that is, the discourse through which their problems are formulated. The languages of literary and philosophical expression are shaped variously at times, both formally and stylistically; this shaping co-decides possible models of their reception, determining the framework of communication.
Second, perceiving the research problem in literature-philosophy relations requires that the assumption be adopted that in both literary and philosophical utterances, form and style are non-transparent and also have a significant character—that is, authors are allowed to strive for individualized modes of expression in their thinking processes. If they weren’t striving for that—an argument invoked by opponents of reducing philosophical discourse to patterns of formal logic—the effect would be problematic issues’ expulsion from the realm of philosophical reflection. A philosopher’s choice of literary form can signify an intentional rejection of systemic thinking (writings of Kierkegaard,6 works from Nietzsche’s first and second periods, works of Bolesław Miciński,7 late works of Leszek Kołakowski,8 among others). It can also be—as in the novel The Stranger, the philosophical novel in monologues The Fall, or the Diary by Albert Camus9 —an expression of opposition to general notions manifested through efforts to extract abstract formulations such as justice from obscurity, to assign them tangible content through confrontation with concrete situations. However, aspiring to give unique shape to one’s reflections should be accompanied by reflection on rules of this process, so that work related to forming an original language won’t be seen as a source of semantic misunderstandings and terminological confusion, but as the result of intentional actions engaged in linguistic precision, thoroughly considered and worked through, at times producing elaborate and cognitively dazzling results. In Polish philosophy, examples include Witkacy’s Theory of Pure Form10 and its dramaturgical realizations and Miciński’s essays “Philosophical Stagecoach,”11 about the philosopher Victor Cusin and the history of philosophy, and “Portrait of Kant,”12 where he attempted to “transpose” the philosopher’s concepts “into images,” referring to this method as “conceptual imagination.” This list is enriched by late works of Leszek Kołakowski, who lectured at Oxford from 1972 to 1991, in which philosophical reflection—as in Kierkegaard’s works—takes the shape of philosophical fragments, pieces, and edifying speech–building discourses, and play with conventions of fairytale, apocalypse, encyclopedia, sermon, fortune-telling, tending increasingly towards brief prose forms such as the mini-lecture.
The reception of such achievements, as time indicates, depends on prior assumptions, on the recipient’s cognitive dispositions and competences (knowledge of the history of philosophy, ability to operate philological tools), and on knowledge of which the scope is usually fragmentary and the selection of which is culturally conditioned.
Third, the study of relations between literature and philosophy expressed through the medium of language, due to focus on recognizing the specificity of this language in action in a given place and time (the description of its forms, style, and functions), gains a self-reflexive character and may become a form of complex meta-reflection for the study of literature and history of philosophy.
Fourth, the research juxtaposition of literary and philosophical discourses, motivated historically and by the construction of texts, can be a starting point for determining similarities between them and for contexts to which they refer, along with relevant functional differences. Contrary to the tendency to reduce the aims of philosophical statements to their cognitive function and of literary texts to their aesthetic function, they can be polyfunctional, which stems from their genre and stylistic shaping. An example is a manifesto performing a persuasive-postulative function. Genres as different as polemics, aphorism (based on the structure of paradox), and essay (along with polyphony inscribed in it and its characteristic presentation of a problem from numerous viewpoints) will perform a critical function along with their cognitive function. Almost all appropriately shaped forms of literary and philosophical expression can turn towards themselves and fulfill autotelic, metaliterary, and metaphilosophical functions.
The challenge connected with comparative analysis of functions of literary and philosophical texts seems particularly significant, given that very often the identification of discourses (literary, philosophical, scientific, among others) is not based on specialized formal and semantic analyses preceded by contextual analysis but on the social contract that defines institutional divisions and establishes ways of knowledge distribution. This problem is more complicated, however, as the shape of philosophical discourse doesn’t always meet and—through the choice of its creators—isn’t always meant to meet criteria characterizing a strictly scientific text, including objectivity, abstractness, rationality, clarity, and comprehensibility realized in precise logical statements free of double or multiple ambiguities, nor is it formulated using precisely defined concepts. The issue appears to be even more complex, as there are writers among philosophers and vice versa, who are often doubly qualified, which they express in their works. A record of work of the mind formulated at the borders between literature and philosophy should not be placed, due to its potential assignment to either field of knowledge, outside the field of research.
Forms, and Figures of Thinking
It is not uncommon for philosophical texts to be organized in literary terms overall, taking on the form of dialogues, letters, intellectual autobiographies, essays, while literary works contain empirically tangible indicators of philosophical aims—for example, formal references to specific philosophers and their works, or genre references (to the philosophically grounded treatise form, for example, known from such works as Lucretius’s On the Nature of the Universe,13 Spinoza’s Theological and Political Treatise,14 Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,15 and Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature16 ). Textual markers of philosophical contexts in literature can include lexical references created through allusion, quotation, paraphrasing, and cryptic quotations from philosophical works. In philosophical works, on the other hand, textual markers of literary contexts constitute various signals of stylization of statements (in the form of pastiche, parody, travesty, etc.). These markers can also include chosing literary genres as the medium of philosophy, formal heterogeneity manifested by inserting parables, anecdotes, sections stylized as correspondence excerpts, etc., set into a philosophical text, as well as repetitions and buildups of authorial presence, employing fictional characters in the role of the author, use of pseudonymity strategies, use of double-meaning tropes (irony, metonymy, syllepsis) or of ambiguous ones (metaphor, symbol), as well as dual- or multilevel structural patterns, among which we can find allegorical and parabolic stories.
The presence of figures of thought, especially those in which semantic doubling has been inscribed, encourages the exploration of possible reading strategies for texts situated at the borders of literature and philosophy. The use of figures of thinking in combination with games with genre conventions, for example, and striving to break rules governing them, is an important way of creating a text enabling the individualization of expression. The more original its form, however, the greater the difficulty of reception. In extreme cases, a text’s unique and meaning-generating form may remain completely unrecognized by the recipient as original, i.e., as one the rules of construction of which are unique, and to describe them they must first be carefully reconstructed. The histories of literature and philosophy hold many such cases, in reference to which a lack of coherence and a lack of causal links are spoken. In other words, instead of striving to read the specificity of constructional patterns inscribed in the text, one observes the absence of the expected patterns.
One example is the reception of Miciński’s “Portrait of Kant,”17 a work in which the writer (a disciple of Władysław Tatarkiewicz, who wrote in Poland a three-volume history of philosophy) realized the idea of presenting parts of the philosopher’s biography while transposing notions Kant used into images. To achieve this, Miciński had to create a new literary and philosophical form. He called it conceptual imagination. Recalling Lessing’s division of the arts into the temporal and the spatial,18 he aimed to ensure that a literary text originating from philosophical inspirations and classified as a temporal art would become graspable all at once, manifesting itself as a painting would, as a work of spatial art. As understood by Miciński, conceptual imagination is an original form of expression where we can find figures of thought including sermocinatio, from Latin, which consisted of putting words in Kant’s voice as the starting point of his characterization, and allegories that often contrast with one another. These include the image of a revolving mirror reflecting Achilles’ shield on one side, treated as a synonym of the power of divine gaze on which Miciński tried to capture events taking place in different places and times simultaneously that are inaccessible at the same moment to imperfect human observation. On the mirror’s other side the face of old Immanuel Kant appears, an object of humans’ characteristic fragmentary perception, conditioned by time and space and also by the structure of his cognitive apparatus.
Formally the work is similar to essay structure, due to a striving for syncrisis. It also abounds in perseverations of motifs, literary and pictorial intertexts showing how first his body then his mind slowly refused Kant’s obedience. In it we also find discursive elements (including quotations from the philosopher’s works) and anecdotal ones (concerning Kant’s biography, taken from Thomas De Quincey’s Last Days of Immanuel Kant19 ). The reception of the work, which includes a critical formulation on the Critique of Pure Reason,20 shows that Miciński regularly paid for his pursuit of formal originality with misunderstanding and the exclusion of his work from the field of philosophy.
A need to seek solutions to research problems gives way here, unfortunately, to their being removed from circulation. Science can’t remain helpless in the face of such phenomena; it needs to name and analyze the figures of thought used in such texts, to specify selected applicable research methods for the process of their cognitive exploration, and to indicate transdisciplinary categories that render the study of similar problems within literature and philosophy possible, taking into account their specificity.
A very important task is to explore the complex role of metaphor in philosophy—for example, in phenomenological thought—and to contrast it with traditional Aristotelian understanding. The research should highlights how contemporary phenomenology, focused on the structures of consciousness, recognizes metaphor as central to how humans interpret and experience reality, not as mere rhetorical flourish.
In the conventional view stemming from Aristotle (substitution model), metaphor is seen as a stylistic device that replaces one term with another based on similarity—useful for poetics, but epistemologically secondary and unrelated to truth-claims about the world. In the phenomenological turn influenced by Husserl, Ricoeur, and Derrida, phenomenologists challenge that view, treating metaphor as core mechanisms of understanding and perception. Metaphor is not decorative but constitutive of meaning-making in experience, with far-reaching philosophical consequences. This shift disrupts the literal-figurative binary and questions traditional notions of truth rooted in a strict correspondence between language and reality. Metaphor is seen as formative of cognitive structures and as crucial for navigating the ambiguity of lived experience. Recent developments blend phenomenology with cognitive science (Lakoff and Johnson’s embodied mind theory, for example), exploring metaphor’s role in shaping human thought, perception, and even neuroscience-informed models of consciousness.21
Transdisciplinary Categories
In studying this type of text, transdisciplinary categories, common both to literary studies and to the philosophical sciences, can be helpful. They include aesthetic categories such as tragedy or comedy (and its stylistic forms, such as irony or grotesque) and also categories with a historically changing range of meanings, among them the subject, the language, subjectivity, objectivity, narration, truth, and genre. Comparative research must be attended by awareness of these differences, which should be taken into account in the course of analysis, with the categories adapted to it beforehand with respect to the specificity of particular disciplines. These adaptations should be made critically. For example, the highly operational category of speech genres (understood as modifiable patterns of articulating thought and experience), taken from the natural sciences for literary and philosophical studies, should be transplanted from its mother field on its own, not necessarily in evolutionary terms, along with its characteristic model of thinking by which over the course of history a change process takes place, determining generic development rather than involution. If this evolution had taken place continuously in literature and philosophy, it would be impossible to indicate periods, which is usually possible when a given aspect doesn’t appear, or the provision of a logical explanation when they reappear after being absent for centuries. Moreover, the subsequent actualization of a species is no guarantee that it will reappear more fully realized than in earlier manifestations. In other words, the adaptation of genological categories for the means of interdisciplinary research, conducted at the border of literary studies and philosophical sciences, requires the reconstruction of the history of genres and their modifications, the description of their interactions, and reasons for their updating, followed by a model descriptive account of their history in its unique form.
Subjectivity is another transdisciplinary category; it assumes that the shape cognition takes depends on the consciousness of the knower. As Witold Gombrowicz, the renowned writer working at the border between literature and philosophy, put it: “he who defends [as writer, as philosopher] his inner world, his freedom, his private, concrete life, is on the side of subjectivity.”22 It was clear for Gombrowicz that chosing the literary form of philosophizing is a choice of subjectivity.
By examining subjectivity, we can ask both what is being written about it and also how that can manifest itself in a literary text. To verify it, we ought to analyze the construction of a literary character along with their relations with other characters and with the world in which the character exists, and which surrounds them all. Most significant are those literary texts in which the character is also narrator of the novel or the short story, and in which the world around that narrator, other characters, and all events are being filtered through their consciousness and presented from their specific viewpoint. The situation is more complicated when polyphony seems to characterize the text, which does not permit us to assume that the sole instance uniting various elements in the literary work and determining its semantics is that literary character, the narrator identical to the textual author. That is a crucial aspect of the work.
The reader gains insight into their psyche through the technique of a stream of consciousness, getting acquainted with their system of values, disposition, their position in the social hierarchy. It should be noted that streams of consciousness of narrators can contain dialogic responses of other characters, as recollected by the narrators. The narrative may be conducted by the subjective voices of several characters, constituting an important events-presentation strategy in plenty of novels. The main characters of a novel aren’t the only ones in its story. Those main characters are those who are presented from the perspective of other characters or indirectly characterized through dialogic responses. Their identity depends on who talks about them and in what manner, while from the reader’s perspective this is built on the situational context.
Moreover, when characters formulate statements directed to other characters, independently of what or whom they talk about, they characterize themselves indirectly by their way of speaking and their use of language. Consequently, it is always doubtful whether characters who are simultaneously narrators even speak of the same things, even when their statements relate to the same events. Therefore, the strategy of employing multiple narrative perspectives in the text can result in a clash of subjectivities and a multidimensional relativization of the literary world.
In the situation of the multiplication of narrative perspectives, we also consider whether there is a hierarchy of speaking instances in the text. This is a very important issue, one of the most important in the field of literature, at that. The character’s identity is not essentialist and independent (existing in and for itself) but is strictly relational, and thus possible only with a reference to the other—in both the micro- and macro-social spheres of the world being presented. Another crucial problem is posed by the limited nature of individual cognitive efforts: knowledge about the presented world, communicated by the characters, is subjective, concerns only some aspects, and can never achieve completeness.
In literature, we can observe at times a type of extremely reified character who is treated by others as a nonhuman being, that is to say, in inhuman ways. An important research challenge in this situation is to analyze how such a character perceives themself, others, and the surrounding world. It is necessary to consider whether perceptions, actions, and words of that character are adequate and whether these correspond to each other. It is also worth asking whether their actions are extensive or reduced to emotions and uncontrolled reflexes, and what that entails for their cognitive condition. An interest in subjectivity and related literary techniques—personal narrative, interior monologue, stream of consciousness or dramatic monologue (in which one character is speaking to another), multiplication of narrative viewpoints—signal cultural transformations of the worldview and understanding of human existence. These modifications relate to epistemological crises and increasing awareness of the possibility of cognitive processes occurring at sensory, prerational stages, before ordering structures of the world are imposed. As readers, we also need to probe the narrator’s trustworthiness and whether their vision of the world can be credible. It is necessary to examine how their standpoint differs from ours.
As we see, the category of the literary character and its principles of construction turn out to be crucial in understanding what subjectivity is, what it can be, how it can exist.
Let’s consider which literary conventions favor the presentation of the subjectivity. One can enumerate diaries, memoirs, essays, and autobiographical conventions in which the subject is the basic instance organizing a text’s other components.
Research Methods
Contextual analysis23 is one useful methodological proposal in the process of investigating relations between literature and philosophy. The aim of the contextual analysis is to identify and reconstruct reference systems necessary for interpreting texts under study, and to define types of relations between them. The contextual analysis is based on the conviction that the quality of knowledge depends on selecting the appropriate context, among other things, and thus should become the primary object of inquiry. In the course of research, the more contexts that can be reconstructed, the greater the chance of constructing a valuable and plausible research hypothesis. Applying this method consists of identifying textual determinants of the literary context in a philosophical text and of a literary work’s philosophical context. This method makes it possible to determine types of contextual relations from filiations (similarities motivated by direct contacts between literary authors and philosophers, and by mutual or one-way reception of works) to homologies (similarities resulting from reference to a common prototype by writers and/or philosophers) and analogies (similarities with unknown motivation). Identifying the type of contextual relation, which can occur on lexical, stylistic, and genre planes, among others, along with being connected with a specific problematic, should provide a starting point for identifying interdisciplinary relations that are significant from the viewpoint of the history of literature and/or the history of philosophy, as these stimulate their developments. Knowledge about filiation and homology can be gleaned from biographical, memoir, epistolographic, and autobiographical materials, from paratexts including titles, subtitles, prefaces, afterwords, and dedications, and from intertexts in the form of quotations, cryptic citations, lexical allusions, and paraphrases. Meanwhile studying analogies can constitute a starting point for creating genre taxonomies, for example, placed at the junction of philosophy and literature that can be forms of expressions of subjectivity, for instance.
Another method that can provide fruitful results in studying texts at the borderline of literature and philosophy is the philological method.24 It is especially useful in cases where we deal with complexity of relations between different levels of narrative expression in a work or the multiplication and accumulation of speaking instances, or their dual- or multilevel creation by means of tropes including irony, syllepsis, metonymy, metaphor, or the use of different kinds of stylization. The philological method may then serve to establish the degree of directness of utterance in individual speaking instances, describing the hierarchy between them or other types of relations. Thus, it will be helpful in the process of reconstructing beliefs of the subject of a work, who doesn’t have to be identical with any of the speaking characters. It should also make possible the characterization of it, and formulating a response to whether it is understood essentialistically or whether its meaning and significance are formed relationally and contextually.
An important method in the study of literary and philosophical texts is the comparative method.25 It is likely to be of great service in both disciplines, especially when applied to the study of vast material, so the comparison of the two discourses will result in a record of similarities and differences between them (often visible at first glance), while also providing added value. In fact, it will make it possible to recover cultural links and to reconstruct the local and also the transcontinental histories of relations between literature and philosophy, and in describing consequences of the interaction of literary and philosophical forms, and determining how and under what conditions transfers took place between them.
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The aim of the present volume, Literature and Philosophy: Research Methods, Forms, and Categories of Thought is to elaborate a research framework, both methodological and categorical, for historically oriented contextual studies on relations between literature and philosophy.
Literature and Philosophy consists of this introduction and three parts.
My introduction explores literature and philosophy as complementary “languages of the mind,” emphasizing their shared potential for interdisciplinary research. It aims to spark dialogue and build a research framework tailored to historically contextual studies of the two fields’ interactions. In it, I advocate for research at the intersection of these fields, highlighting the value of creating innovative tools and methods that cross traditional disciplinary lines. Ultimately, this introduction underscores how such studies enrich and expand the boundaries of the humanities through their transdisciplinary nature.
The book’s first part, “Traditions and Research Methods,” recalls the four pillars of continental tradition, in which mutual relations between literature and philosophy were subject to negation, affirmation, or prioritization. The essays here indicate possible nexuses between literature and philosophy along with historical changes in their relations (in a typological framework), identifying and defining trans-disciplinary categories common to literature and philosophy while delimiting the scope of their application. This first part has a comparative character and tries to address questions of how multifaceted literary texts of a philosophical nature are studied and of differences between close reading practices in literature and in philosophy. Additionally, hybridization of both discourses is broached via the topic of the use of philosophy in creating literary characters.
In Eileen C. Sweeney’s “An Origin Story for Philosophy without Literary Form,” she highlights a pivotal medieval moment in the development of Western philosophy, focusing on how the field gradually distanced itself from literary expression to become a discipline grounded in pure logic and reason. It analyzes how medieval thinkers such as John of Salisbury, Gundissalinus, and Roger Bacon interpreted Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. They saw the Aristotelian demonstration as the gold standard of science: offering universal, timeless certainty, unlike rhetorical arguments which rely on context and persuasion. This interpretation introduced a clear boundary between knowledge deemed scientifically valid and that which fell short, shaping a lasting divide between philosophy and literature. The article “Poetry and Philosophy: Four Pillars of Tradition, a Comparative Study of Discourses” by Edward Kasperski argues that the relationship between literature and philosophy is dynamic and historically variable. It challenges the notion of fixed “essences” of either discipline, viewing such definitions as theoretical constructs rather than reflections of reality. It then traces key theoretical approaches to understanding the interplay between poetry and philosophy throughout history:
strict separation, with philosophy ranked higher (e.g., Plato);
reversal of hierarchy, privileging poetry (e.g., Giambattista Vico); genetic dependence, seeing philosophy as emerging from poetry;
Romantic critique of separation, especially by Friedrich Schlegel; mutual influence, emphasizing their inseparability;
Hegelian synthesis, where poetry focuses on form as meaning-bearing and maintains autonomy.
Kasperski’s article highlights how evolving conceptions in both fields influence how they are theorized and interrelated, showing that their boundaries remain fluid and open to reinterpretation. The article presents the position that the relations between literature and philosophy are not constant, because both philosophy and literature are changeable historically (and not only). The “literary nature” of literature or the “philosophical nature” of philosophy as an attempt to reach the essence of these areas should be treated as theoretical attempts to find a center that does not coincide with the real orders of discourses. Next, the article tries to point out the most important ways of theoretical understanding of the relationship between poetry and philosophy, to characterize them briefly and to define their place in the history of the relationship between both fields. These are, in turn: treating poetry and philosophy as inherently separate, a complete separation, as with Plato, and their hierarchization (granting primacy to philosophy); reversing this hierarchy, as with Giambatista Vico; inscribing poetry and philosophy into genetic dependence (recognizing poetry as primary and stating that philosophy emerged secondarily to it); the questioning of complete separateness by Romanticism, above all by Friedrich Schlegel; the declaration of the inseparability of both domains and mutual, beneficial influence; and the equating of poetry and philosophy by Hegel, who postulated that poetry, unlike philosophy, focuses on form, understood nevertheless as a semantic factor. He postulated the need to combine form with “individual shape,” while stressing that while poetry should not be ancillary to other fields, it should not express content created outside of it.
The article “Divided by a Common Thread: A Comparative Study of Close Reading in Literature and Philosophy” by Jon Phelan opens by defining the terms “literature” and “philosophy,” then asserts that close reading is a central practice in interpreting both. It then responds to critiques of close reading in literature neglecting wider social, historical, and political contexts. To support its claims, the article presents two excerpts for analysis—one literary, one philosophical. The core argument is that while both types of texts serve as cognitive discourses, they do so through distinct modalities, offering complementary modes of engaging the intellect.
The article “Hybridization of Discourses: Methodological Notes on Philosophy and the Creation of Literary Characters” by Anna Bykova examines how the hybridization of literary and philosophical discourses enables shaping fictional characters. Using theories from Joanna Klara Teske and from Henryk Markiewicz, Edward Kasperski, and James Phelan, Bykova proposes a three-part model for analyzing characters, taking into account mimetic, thematic, and synthetic aspects. The article shows that philosophical ideas can influence the creation of characters directly (as philosophers or philosophical figures) or subtly through narrative techniques. Through examples from authors including Bolesław Miciński, Stefan Themerson, and Leszek Kołakowski, the article highlights characters who engage with, challenge, or reinvent philosophical traditions. Special focus is given to unconventional and experimental, nonanthropomorphic characters, showing how they become vessels for philosophical reflection and expand methods of literary analysis.
The second part, “Genres and Intertexts,” focuses on two exemplary forms, the manifesto and the fragment (chosen genres common to literature and philosophy that include aphorism, treatise, essay, and philosophical story). It presents these forms from the literary and the philosophical perspectives. These generic expressive forms are discussed in a historical and synthesizing manner. As a result, consequences of the choice of a particular type of generic expression become visible, as does its meaning in shaping the philosophical or literary reflections of specific thinkers and writers across epochs. This part also indicates selected references in literature to philosophy and in philosophy to literature. Relations between the choice of form and expressive style and inter-discursive references are explored here. In this part of the book, several authors attempt to show how and why philosophical system-building and ideologies of certainty have been questioned. become the subject to doubt.
The article “History, Literature, and Philosophy in Plato’s Apology” by Jonathan Lavery explores the specific nature of Plato’s Apology compared to his other dialogues, noting differences in setting, style, and philosophical depth. It addresses the scholarly debate on whether the Apology aligns with the rest of Plato’s work, ultimately affirming that it does—though in a unique way. Lavery analyzes three interpretive frameworks:
the first one views the Apology as a historical account of Socrates’ trial (e.g., Burnet, Vlastos);
the second one interprets it as part of the intellectual history of Socratic thought (e.g., Kahn);
the third one sees it as an expression of philosophy as self-examination (e.g., Sellars).
Lavery critiques the limitations of the historical readings while favoring the third Framework, though suggesting refinements to Sellars’ version. Ultimately, Socrates’ life and persona are shown to serve Plato’s philosophical aims, not by dialectical argument, but by embodying the spirit of philosophical, pre-dialectical inquiry.
The article “The Fragment: Poetics and Worldview” by Tomasz Wójcik explores the aesthetic and philosophical significance of the literary fragment, focusing on its formal qualities and worldview implications. Wójcik traces the presence of fragmentary poetics across Polish, French, English, and German literatures, incorporating perspectives from writers, scholars, and philosophers. Key points include:
historical background: the article outlines the development of the fragment as a literary form, spotlighting its peak influence during the Romantic period and its notable resurgence in the twentieth century;
modern relevance: it investigates the various factors behind the fragment’s growing presence in twentieth-century literature and its links to different genres;
cognitive and axiological aspects: the discussion extends to the values and intellectual functions associated with fragmentary writing—how it stimulates thought, evokes complexity, and embraces incompleteness;
ontological reflection: the article closes by examining ambiguous relations between the fragment and the idea of wholeness, considering whether a fragment can or should stand independently or always imply a larger, absent totality.
The article ultimately positions the fragment as a dynamic and meaningful literary strategy, both formally and philosophically, resonating with modern sensibilities and epistemological shifts.
The article “The Platonic Intertexts in Hamlet” by Erich Freiberger explores Platonic influence on Shakespeare’s play, focusing particularly on the tension between sophistry and philosophy as portrayed in Plato’s Republic. Freiberger draws a parallel between Plato’s allegory of the ship of state—featuring the statesman, the philosopher, and the sophist—and the play’s roles of Polonius, Hamlet, and Claudius. Beyond this central analogy, the article identifies additional Platonic tropes in Hamlet, arguing that Shakespeare incorporates these elements and also inverts Plato’s original use of imagery, offering a dramatic reinterpretation of philosophical ideas.
The text “Szymborska’s Life Philosophy in Polemic with Plato and with ‘Unshakable Confidence’ Ideologies” by Józef Leszek Krakowiak presents the examination of Wisława Szymborska’s poetic confrontation with Platonic metaphysics, focusing on her critique of core Platonic concepts including the status of eternal ideas, reincarnation (as in Republic Book X), and the creation of living beings (as in Timaeus). Key aspects include:
primary poems analyzed: “Plato, or Why,” “Utopia,” and “One Version of Events”—the latter was featured at Szymborska’s Nobel Prize ceremony—are read as literary rejections of metaphysical absolutism and utopian certitude;
human uniqueness and autonomy: Szymborska champions the agency and singularity of human beings, rejecting transcendent theories that, in her view, would justify controlling life’s evolving diversity;
imagination and open society: through poems including “Psalm,” “Evaluation of an Unwritten Poem,” and “Map,” Szymborska calls for breaking down ideological and institutional boundaries, envisioning a more inclusive, liberated world;
ethical framework: Szymborska’s worldview blends Kantian ethics, Scheler’s sense of cosmic unity, and a stoic reverence for life, expressing a feminist, ecological, and pacifist resistance to patriarchal authority and absolutist ideologies;
affirmation of earthly Life: Szymborska affirms a form of pantheistic humanism, celebrating life’s transient beauty without appealing to any abstract or eternal ideal—as seen in her works “Here,” “Archeology,” and “Under One Small Star.”
Ultimately, the article presents Szymborska as a poet of conscientious resistance, whose critique of Platonic ideals is philosophical and is also deeply ethical and poetically vital.
The third part discusses and critiques selected ideas including thymos, and presents exemplary trans-disciplinary categories including narrative and historical memory. Reflections on these categories at the junction of the fields of literature and philosophy are oriented towards developing innovative research tools useful in bossth disciplines. And as with all the essays in this volume, they correspond to the idea of exploring literature and philosophy as languages of the mind, describing their relations and expanding the boundaries of the humanities.
My coeditor Marcin Czardybon’s article “’Under the Guise of the Concept of the Sublime’: On Thymos, Political Philosophy, and Literature” critically examines Francis Fukuyama’s concept of constructing national unity through “national stories,” as proposed in that writer’s book Identity. Czardybon, drawing on thinkers including Peter Sloterdijk and Hayden White, interprets this strategy as a sublime or thymotic enhancement of an aging democratic narrative, meant to compete with the emotionally charged appeal of populist movements. Key elements of the article include:
aesthetic and political power of the sublime: the author engages with theories of the sublime, highlighting its performative and mobilizing potential in shaping collective identity;
thymos as a political force: reviving the Platonic concept of thymos, the spirited, dignity-seeking part of the soul, the article suggests that this emotional force fuels national storytelling and identity formation;
ethnoplastic narratives: these are literary and cultural narratives aimed at molding a cohesive national identity through emotionally resonant storytelling;
democratic contradictions: the article concludes by questioning whether this thymotic supplementation, while meant to strengthen democracy, may actually contradict democratic ideals by emphasizing identity over open deliberation.
This provides a provocative reflection on how emotional and aesthetic tools are used or misused in our day in shaping national consciousness.
The article “Situating Nationalism in the Realm of Indian Political Thought: Models of Critical Thinking of Divergent Perceptions, Tagore and Gandhi” by Tinni Goswami analyzes the political philosophies of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, two towering figures in Indian intellectual history, and their contributions to shaping the discourse on Indian nationalism. While they both aimed to liberate India from colonial rule, their views on the nature and direction of the nationalist movement often diverged sharply. Key themes include:
shared goal, diverging visions: although united by their commitment to India’s freedom, Gandhi and Tagore had distinct approaches to nationalism, with Gandhi emphasizing self-reliance and moral community, and Tagore advocating for intellectual freedom and what he termed a “swaraj of the mind”;
points of disagreement: the Khadi movement as a viable development model, Gandhi’s skepticism toward Western knowledge and technology differences in reimagining India’s future, with Tagore cautioning against dogma and narrow ideals;
debates as intellectual milestones: their dialogues and disagreements reveal the complexity of Indian nationalism and enrich its philosophical foundation;
contemporary relevance: in an era of growing religious tension and identity-based conflict, the article underscores the continued relevance of the thought of Gandhi and Tagore in promoting peace, pluralism, and moral reflection in contemporary India.
The article “On the Concept of Benign Fake Prestige: Marginalia of Gandhi’s ‘The Ideal Banghi’” by Michał Kozłowski offers a historical-philosophical analysis of Mahatma Gandhi’s 1937 essay “The Ideal Bhangi,” which addressed the social role of untouchable cleaners. Kozłowski introduces the concept of “fake prestige”—a form of respect and recognition that lacks tangible social capital that wealth and power hold. While such prestige may appear morally dubious or politically manipulative, the article argues that in the fraught context of India’s decolonization, Gandhi’s deployment of this strategy served a vital function: it helped prevent civil unrest and societal fragmentation. The article closes by reflecting on how this case sheds light on the historical construction of sociological concepts, emphasizing their narrative foundations and the paradoxes inherent in strategies of social cohesion.
This project is implemented by the Research Centre for Contextual Studies and Literary Translation Studies at the Institute of Polish Literature, Faculty of Polish Studies of the University of Warsaw, in cooperation with the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University in Prague. Project partners are the quarterly journal Tekstualia, the Research Centre for French Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw, and the Department of Comparative Studies at the University of Warsaw.
Translated by Jan Ziętara
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See Edward Kasperski, “Poetry and Philosophy: Four Pillars of Tradition, a Comparative Study of Discourses.” Tekstualia 1 (1) 2013.
Plato, Republic, trans. Christopher Rowe (London: Penguin, 2012).
Giambattista Vico, La scienza nuova. Le tre edizioni del 1725, 1730 e 1744, § 374, 779, 806, 820, 821, ed. Manuela Sanna, Vincenzo Vitiello (Milano: Bompiani, 2012); Giambattista Vico, Nauka nowa, trans. Jan Jakubowicz (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1966), 438, 426, 446.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Wykłady o estetyce, vol. 1, trans. Janusz Grabowski and Adam Landman (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1964–1967), 162–180.
Schlegel’s statements were formulated in the volumes Fragmente zur Poesie und Literatur. See Friedrich Schlegel, “Fragmente zur Poesie und Literatur,” vol. 1, in: Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Friedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, Vol. 16, ed. Hans Eichner (München‒Wien: Padeborn, 1981) and Friedrich Schlegel, “Fragmente zur Poesie und Literatur,” Vol. 2, in: Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Friedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, Vol. 17, ed. Hans Eichner (München‒Wien: Padeborn, 1991). See also: Pisma teoretyczne niemieckich romantyków, ed. Tadeusz Namowicz (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2000), 110.
See Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, Johannes Climacus, trans. Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Søren Kierkegaard, Repetition: an essay in experimental psychology, trans. Walter Lowrie (New York: Harper & Row, 1964); Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, trans. Alastair Hannay, Abridged Version (London: Penguin, 1992); Søren Kierkegaard, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. Howard V. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
See Bolesław Miciński’s essays, for example: Bolesław Miciński, Pisma. Eseje, artykuły, ed. Anna Micińska (Cracow: Znak, 1970).
Leszek Kołakowski, 13 bajek z królestwa Lailonii (Cracow: Znak, 2015); Leszek Kołakowski, “Wielka encyklopedia filozofii i nauk politycznych,” in: Leszek Kołakowski, Moje słuszne poglądy na wszystko (Cracow: Znak, 1999); Leszek Kołakowski, Mini wykłady o maxi sprawach, Seria druga (Cracow: Znak, 1999).
Albert Camus, Obcy, trans. Marek Bieńczyk (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2022); Albert Camus, Upadek, trans. Anna Wasilewska (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2023); Albert Camus, Notatniki 1935–1959, trans. Joanna Guze (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krąg, 1994); Albert Camus, Mit Syzyfa i inne eseje, trans. Joanna Guze (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Muza, 2003); Albert Camus, Człowiek zbuntowany, trans. Joanna Guze, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Muza, 2002).
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Dramaty, Vol. 1, 2, ed. Janusz Degler (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2016); Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, O czystej formie i inne pisma o sztuce, ed. Janusz Degler (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2023).
Bolesław Miciński, “Dyliżans filozoficzny,” in: Bolesław Miciński, Pisma. Eseje, artykuły, ed. Anna Micińska (Cracow: Znak, 1970).
Bolesław Miciński, “Portret Kanta,” in: Bolesław Miciński, Pisma. Eseje, artykuły, ed. Anna Micińska (Cracow: Znak, 1970).
Lukrecjusz [Titus Lucretius Carus], O naturze wszechrzeczy, trans. Edward Szymański (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1957).
Baruch de Spinoza, Traktat teologiczno-polityczny, trans. Ignacy Halpern Myślicki (Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1916).
George Berkeley, Rzecz o zasadach poznania ludzkiego, trans. Feliks Jezierski (Warsaw: De Agnostini, 2023).
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2014).
Miciński, ″Portret Kanta.”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laokoon, czyli o granicach malarstwa i poezji, trans. Henryk Zymon-Dębicki (Cracow: Universitas, 2012).
Thomas De Quincey’s, Last Days of Immanuel Kant, And Other Writings (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2009).
Immanuel Kant, Krytyka władzy sądzenia, trans. Jerzy Gałecki (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1964).
Aristotle, Categories and De Interpretatione, trans. John Lloyd Ackrill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963); Jacques Derrida, “White Mythology, Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy,” in: Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962); Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982); Mark Johnson, “Metaphor and Cognition,” in: Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, ed. Shaun Gallagher and Daniel Schmicking (New York: Springer, 2010); Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: The Modern Library, 1958); George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Perseus-Basic, 1999); Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1993); Mark Turner, The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Witold Gombrowicz, Dziennik 1961–1969 (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2004).
See Żaneta Nalewajk, “Problems of Contexts and Research Methods in Comparative Studies,” Tekstualia 1 (1) (2013): 33–48.
“The History of Modern Philology,” New Englander and Yale Review 16 (63) (1858): 465–510.
Rens Bod, A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Devin Griffiths, “The Comparative Method and the History of the Modern Humanities,” History of Humanities 2 (2) (2017).