this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Philosophy

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Do people still write philosophical novels? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I guess this was mainly a Continental thing, but for a while philosophers often wrote novels that in some way expounded their philosophy. I think Nietzsche was perhaps one of the earliest, with Zarathustra. All the French existentialists wrote novels, too. What happened to this trend?

EDIT: I just realised that arguably this goes back all the way to Plato! But I was thinking less of straightforward, largely plot-free dialogues and more of full fledged novels, like Sartre's Nausea.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Someone once said that philosopher is a failed writer: you wouldn't do philosophy if you are talented enough to write a good novel.

From the lens of writing almost every novel has bits and pieces of author's philosophy. However, in modern world there's not a lot of demand for modern philosophy (same as with other deep academic field).

Consider how many novels were written about gas thermodynamics? About zero and the reason is simple: there's little demand for it to afford hundreds of hours of professional writer