“Sometime during the 1990s, when I was teaching philosophy at UCSD, my friend, colleague, and music teacher, Carol Plantamura, discussed the possibility of teaching a course together looking at ways in which various literary works (plays, stories, novels) had been treated as operas, and how different themes emerged in the opera and in its original. One of the pairings we planned to use was Mann's great novella and Britten's opera. Unfortunately, the course was never taught, but the idea remained with me.” WayIdeasDifferentPhilosophyPlayStoriesUseTogetherCoursesNovelTeacherTeachingPossibilityTaughtMy FriendsOriginalsVariousTreatedThemeOperaColleaguesCarolsLiterary WorksMusic TeacherWork Play Author:Philip Kitcher
“We know that he gave Aschenbach Mahler's first name, and also his facial features. So Visconti picks up on something interesting. That led me to think about ways of developing further the Aschenbach-Mahler connection.” ThinkingKnowsWayFirstsNamesInterestingPicksConnectionsDevelopingFeaturesFacialSomething InterestingMahlerFacial Features Author:Philip Kitcher
“I found a deep kinship between Mahler's recurrent attempts to confront all sides of life and to affirm himself in the face of his own finitude, and Aschenbach's dedication to persevere in the literary evocation of beauty. Exploring this kinship led me to reflect on many of Mahler's songs and symphonies - and particularly his great masterpiece, Das Lied von der Erde. The end result was a way of reading Mann that I hadn't originally anticipated at all.” WayEndsFacesSongReadingFoundSidesResultsDedicationExploringMasterpieceLiedSymphonyPersevereKinshipEnd ResultsFinitudeMahler Author:Philip Kitcher
“I didn't know that Mahler would come to play so large a role, nor that music and literature and philosophy can interinanimate one another in the way I've come to think they do in this case.” ThinkingKnowsWayPhilosophyPlayLiteratureRolesCasesMahler Author:Philip Kitcher
“I intend Deaths in Venice to contribute both to literary criticism and to philosophy. But it's not "strict philosophy" in the sense of arguing for specific theses. As I remark, there's a style of philosophy - present in writers from Plato to Rawls - that invites readers to consider a certain class of phenomena in a new way. In the book, I associate this, in particular, with my good friend, the eminent philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, who practices it extremely skilfully.” WayBookPhilosophyCertainClassPracticeStyleParticularReaderCriticismPhilosopherArguingInvitesNew WaysGood FriendStrictAssociatesPlatoRemarksVeniceThesisNancyLiterary CriticismDeath In Venice Author:Philip Kitcher
“In working towards ways of reading Mann, so that his own advances in suggesting new perspectives will become more vivid, I do some fairly standard philosophical analysis of ideas in Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.” WayIdeasReadingPerspectiveStandardsPhilosophicalAnalysisVividSuggestingNew Perspective Author:Philip Kitcher
“I'm a pluralist about perspectives on literature. There seem to me to be all sorts of illuminating ways of responding to major literary works, some of them paying considerable attention to context, others applying various theoretical ideas, yet others focusing on details of language, or linking the work to the author's life, or connecting it with other works.” WayIdeasSeemsLiteratureLanguageAttentionPerspectiveMajorsDetailsVariousConnectingTheoreticalRespondingIlluminatingLiterary Works Author:Philip Kitcher
“I use biography, I use literary connections (as with Platen - this seems to me extremely helpful for appreciating the nuances of Mann's and Aschenbach's sexuality), I use philosophical sources (but not in the way many Mann critics do, where the philosophical theses and concepts seem to be counters to be pushed around rather than ideas to be probed), and I use juxtapositions with other literary works (including Mann's other fiction) and with works of music.” WayIdeasUseSeemsFictionSourceConceptsAppreciateConnectionsPhilosophicalCriticsIncludingSexualityHelpfulBiographiesNuanceThesisJuxtapositionLiterary Works Author:Philip Kitcher
“Part of my methodological approach is made explicit when I discuss ways in which literature can have philosophical significance. Literature doesn't typically argue - and when it does, it's deadly dull. But literature can supply the frame within which we come to observe and reason, or it can change our frame in highly significant ways. That's one of the achievements I'd claim for Mann, and for Death in Venice.” WayDoeMadeReasonLiteratureAchievementApproachClaimsPhilosophicalArguingSignificantDullSignificanceVeniceExplicitDeath In Venice Author:Philip Kitcher
“There are many critics whose work I greatly admire. Even though I diverge from T.J. Reed in several important ways, I've learned greatly from his writings on Mann.” WayWritingImportantCriticsAdmireI've LearnedReeds Author:Philip Kitcher
“One of the things I want to do in the book is to explore how philosophy can be done in literature. I start doing that in the first chapter, by introducing the idea of "philosophy by showing". What literature/philosophy shows is how to look at some important facets of life in a new way, thus changing the frame in which subsequent philosophical argument proceeds.” WayWantFirstsLooksImportantBookIdeasDonePhilosophyShowsLiteratureArgumentPhilosophicalIntroducingChaptersNew WaysFacets Author:Philip Kitcher
“When we read a literary work (or, in some instances, listen to music) our imagination is stimulated, we feel various emotions, and we arrive at new judgments. These attitudes are brought into relation with many others, including our standing tendencies to think and feel in particular ways, and we try to fit our psychological capacities and responses together.” ThinkingWayFeelsTryingTogetherImaginationEmotionAttitudeParticularFitJudgmentCapacityStandingRelationResponseIncludingVariousTendenciesPsychologicalInstanceListening To MusicLiterary Works Author:Philip Kitcher
“Both Proust and Joyce record the ways in which human perspectives can be transformed. In Portrait, Stephen Dedalus is constantly undergoing epiphanies, but their effects are transitory: the new synthetic complex quickly falls apart. Proust's characters, by contrast, often achieve lasting changes of perspective.” WayHumansCharacterFallRecordsAchieveEffectsPerspectiveComplexesLastingTransformedContrastPortraitsFalling ApartEpiphanyTransitoryJoyceSyntheticProustLasting Change Author:Philip Kitcher
“I suspect that any worthwhile exploration of these deep questions about living requires going beyond abstract discussions to the vivid presentation of possibilities. If readers are to be prompted to serious examination of their lives, anatomy isn't enough. We have to be stimulated to imagine, in some detail, what it would be like to live in particular ways.” IfsWayEnoughWould BeImaginePossibilityParticularSeriousReaderDetailsDiscussionAbstractSuspectsExplorationWorthwhileVividExaminationPresentationAnatomy Author:Philip Kitcher
“In the end, we learn about the most basic philosophical questions - like "How to live?" - from a broad mixture of sources, including literature and philosophy, history and anthropology. These sources can guide our reflections on our own experiences, as we explore and reconsider. Mann contributed to such explorations in a distinctive way, and I hope my book brings that out.” WayBookEndsPhilosophyLiteratureSourceReflectionPhilosophicalIncludingGuidesExplorationBroadsMixturesAnthropologyDistinctivePhilosophical Questions Author:Philip Kitcher
“Even though I want to expand the number of ways in which skilful ironic play happens, I suspect I'm probably guilty of the same shortcoming - and I hope that, one of these days, someone will claim that my book, while it goes in a salutary expansive direction, doesn't go far enough, that there are assumptions I make that show I've missed aspects of Mann's irony and ambiguity.” WayWantBookEnoughPlayShowsHappensNumbersAspectClaimsGuiltyThese DaysIronyAssumptionSuspectsIronicAmbiguityShortcomings Author:Philip Kitcher
“Finally, this is one way to reconcile the delight in beauty with the bourgeois life. Aschenbach, on one reading, has spent virtually all of his adult life balancing his restrained homosexuality, which is bound together with his sensitivity to beauty and thus with his artistic vocation, against the demands of conventional society.” WayTogetherReadingDemandAdultsBoundsDelightOne WayArtisticConventionalHomosexualitySensitivityVocationBourgeoisReconcile Author:Philip Kitcher
“Aschenbach is not only a projection of Mann in the obvious ways - same daily routines, author of the works Mann had planned - nor even in sharing his author's aspirations, doubts, and sexual identity. His watchword, "Durchhalten!" [persevere, keep going] could be Mann's own.” WayDoubtIdentityObviousAspirationKeep GoingProjectionPersevereDaily Routines Author:Philip Kitcher
“The variety within Mann's fiction is impressive and fascinating. But Joyce is even more various and many-sided. He begins his career with a wonderful sequence of bleak studies about the ways in which human lives can go awry - in my view, Dubliners is underrated.” WayHumansViewsFictionCareersStudyWonderfulVariousVarietyHuman LifeFascinatingSequenceImpressiveBleakUnderratedJoyce Author:Philip Kitcher
“My ethical naturalism sees us as facing the predicament of being social animals without evolved adaptations that make social life easy. The fundamental problem that sparks the ethical project lies in our limited responsiveness to one another. The only way we have to address that problem is through a representative, informed, and engaged conversation.” WayProblemLyingSocialEasyAnimalConversationProjectsFundamentalsEngagedAddressesEthicalSparksRepresentativesAdaptationSocial LifeNaturalismPredicamentsResponsiveness Author:Philip Kitcher
“Those citizens are distracted by the toys technology has supplied, and fail to recognize the ways in which what they most deeply want is made vulnerable by the coming disruptions of human relations on an over-heated planet.” WayWantHumansMadeTechnologyFailingPlanetsCitizensRelationVulnerableToysDistractedHuman RelationsDisruption Author:Philip Kitcher
