Literature Pursued

In response to Jake's post The Pursuit of Literature, I decided to discuss the purported purpose of the art form in relation to the intent of philosophical discourse. I agree with Jacob that the author of literature and the authors of philosophical discourse generally seem to have different intentions. I must, however, disagree on several points. First of all, while it may be commonplace, I do not think that the essential or primary goal of literature is aesthetic pleasure. As a fellow student and good friend of mine once claimed, aesthetic pleasure does not need to be the goal of an art form, literature included. One may construct a work of literature in order to shock, scare, or sadden his audience. This may seem like a trivial point, but I think it is important to address for later discussions of literature.

Second, in some cases, it may very well be that the philosopher and the novelist are working towards the same end. As an example, I think of the book "The Lord of the Flies," where I believe that Golding's intention was very much the same as Hobbes' in addressing the brutish and savage aspect of inherent human nature. While Golding may have indeed given more aesthetic consideration to his work than Hobbes did, I do not think that it necessarily means that the primary goal of the novel was some sort of aesthetic transmission to the .