The Ancient Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry

by Barfield, Raymond

• ISBN13: 9781107000322
• ISBN10: 1107000327
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-31
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

From its beginnings, philosophy's language, concepts, and imaginative growth have been heavily influenced by poetry and poets. Drawing on the work of a wide range of thinkers throughout the history of western philosophy, Raymond Barfiled explores the pervasiveness of poetry's impact on philosophy and, conversely, how philosophy has sometimes resisted or denied poetry's influence. Although some thinkers, like Giambatista Vico and Nietzsche, praised the wisdom of poets, and saw poetry and philosophy as mutually beneficial pursuits, others resented, diminished or eliminated the importance of poetry in philosophy. Beginning with the famous the passage in Plato's Republic in which Socrates exiles the poets from the city, this book traces the history of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry through the works of thinkers in the Western tradition ranging from Plato to the work of the contemporary thinker Mikhail Bakhtin. This new persepctive provides an illuminating way of reading philosophy that can be extended and applied to other philosophers.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Socrates, Plato, and the Invention of the Ancient Quarrel	p. 10
Aristotle, Poetry, and Ethics	p. 32
Plotinus, Augustine, and Strange Sweetness	p. 52
Boedtius, Dionysius, and the Forms	p. 86
Thomas and Some Thomists	p. 106
Vico's New Science	p. 125
Kant and His Students on the Genius of Nature	p. 148
Hegel and the Owl of Minerva	p. 168
Kierkegaard: A Poet, Alas	p. 189
Dilthey: Poetry and the Escape from Metaphysics	p. 210
Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Saving Power of Poetry	p. 226
Mikhail Bakhtin and Novelistic Consciousness	p. 254
Index	p. 273
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