There is a question that will inevitably arise, and for good reason: it is a potent question. Why did not Nussbaum write this in narrative form?
She maintains that literature is the best fit for investigating and answering questions about how one ought to lead his or her life. Such investigating and answering is actually an act of life, and therefore, to prescribe the best method to investigate how to live your life is actually to prescribe, minimally, how to live your life. Nussbaum is not using narrative; why not? Her hypocrisy, if it is indeed hypocrisy, runs one layer deeper. She, in the first section, actually calls hypocritical any author who would maintain literature as the appropriate medium for conveying truths and then writes a "treatise." I am lost in this Escher-like labyrinth of hypocrisy and inconsistency.
I do not mean this as an attack. Nussbaum argues, if not convincingly, spiritedly that literature is the better medium for this material; why then, does she not write in it?
Maybe she lacked the talent and skill to write good literature. A treatise may not be the best form for her content, but is better than poorly-imagined, poorly-written literature.
ReplyDeleteYou may very well be right about that. Though I will say that I did aesthetically enjoy some of her more stylistic moments and so would not put literature too far beyond her. I do admit she would be a better judge of her own abilities than I.
ReplyDeleteThe only issue then is that she did not allow for that possibility when she was commenting on other authors making the same decision. It seemed she was criticizing authors who maintained her message and still wrote a treatise: obviously what she did herself.
As we discussed the other day Jacob, there are some inherent flaws with her theory. I would not concede that there is an objectively better way to represent a claim, in any certain form. I believe who is able to learn more effectively from literature and from philosophical treatises to some degree would degree depend on 1)the quality of the author's writing 2) perhaps the pupils exposure to alternative writing styles. I agree that some of her word choice is done quite well, and is perhaps as the term you used, aesthetic.
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