Methodos (Jun 2015)
La littérature comme réponse à la question « Comment faut-il vivre ? »
Abstract
In Martha Nussbaum’s book Love’s Knowledge, literature is taken as a way to answer to the question “how must one live?” In our paper we question this idea that seems to us problematic on two sides. On one side, is literature really an “answer” to this question? Does Nussbaum highlight an answer to the question of good life, in her detailed analysis of novels? We find in the papers that make up Love’s Knowledge a tension between two ideas. Indeed Nussbaum seems to defend a life’s ideal where perception is the most important, in opposition with moral laws as well as a support for the application of moral laws. But she defends too the idea that every life’s ideal tends towards an inhuman ideal. Therefore literature provides not only ideals but also wisdom as regards to our relation to ideals: we must not transform them into inhuman ideals; we have particularly to accept an element of blindness in our life. On the other side, is literature an answer to a real “question”? It appears that the question of good life can’t be raised in the way it is in philosophy, but has to be rephrased under pressure of literature, that shows us the variety and complexity of life. It means that Nussbaum not only reminds us the ancient conflict between philosophy and literature, but also tries to go beyond it.
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