How to Do Things with Fictions

· Oxford University Press
E-book
266
Strony
Narzędzia
Odpowiednia

Informacje o e-booku

Why does Mark's Jesus speak in parables? Why does Plato's Socrates make bad arguments? Why are Beckett's novels so inscrutable? And why don't stage magicians even pretend to summon spirits anymore? In a series of captivating chapters on Mark, Plato, Beckett, Mallarmé, and Chaucer, Joshua Landy not only answers these questions but explains why they are worth asking in the first place. Witty and approachable, How to Do Things with Fictions challenges the widespread assumption that literary texts must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real benefit. It reveals that authors are sometimes best thought of not as entertainers or as educators but as personal trainers of the brain, putting their willing readers through exercises designed to fortify specific mental capacities, from form-giving to equanimity, from reason to faith. Delivering plenty of surprises along the way--that moral readings of literature can be positively dangerous; that the parables were deliberately designed to be misunderstood; that Plato knowingly sets his main character up for a fall; that metaphor is powerfully connected to religious faith; that we can sustain our beliefs even when we suspect them to be illusions--How to Do Things with Fictions convincingly shows that our best allies in the struggle for more rigorous thinking, deeper faith, richer experience, and greater peace of mind may well be the imaginative writings sitting on our shelves.
Why does Mark's Jesus speak in parables? Why does Plato's Socrates make bad arguments? Why are Beckett's novels so inscrutable? And why don't stage magicians even pretend to summon spirits anymore? In a series of captivating chapters on Mark, Plato, Beckett, Mallarmé, and Chaucer, Joshua Landy no...

O autorze

Joshua Landy is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University, where he co-founded and co-directs the Initiative in Philosophy and Literature. He is author of Philosophy as Fiction: Self, Deception, and Knowledge in Proust and coeditor, with Michael Saler, of The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age.
Joshua Landy is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University, where he co-founded and co-directs the Initiative in Philosophy and Literature. He is author of Philosophy as Fiction: Self, Deception, and Knowledge in Proust and coeditor, w...

Oceń tego e-booka

Podziel się z nami swoją opinią.

Informacje o czytaniu

Smartfony i tablety
Zainstaluj aplikację Książki Google Play na Androida i iPada/iPhone'a. Synchronizuje się ona automatycznie z kontem i pozwala na czytanie w dowolnym miejscu, w trybie online i offline.
Laptopy i komputery
Audiobooków kupionych w Google Play możesz słuchać w przeglądarce internetowej na komputerze.
Czytniki e-booków i inne urządzenia
Aby czytać na e-papierze, na czytnikach takich jak Kobo, musisz pobrać plik i przesłać go na swoje urządzenie. Aby przesłać pliki na obsługiwany czytnik, postępuj zgodnie ze szczegółowymi instrukcjami z Centrum pomocy.