On the Road with Charles Johnson

this essay is a celebration of charles johnson. We have known each other for thirty-six years—ever since he sent me correspondence on my novel Georgia that I had submitted to the Fiction Collective. We have corresponded off and on over this time. The more I got to know Charles, the more I found similarities in our interests and worldviews. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s move forward and first examine some of the theoretical claims and then show how one reads fictive narrative philosophy via two short stories written by Dr. Johnson.¹

The Theory

In our co-authored book,² we set out that literature can be philosophy. This is a rather radical claim. Most writers on the subject view the relationship between philosophy and literature as the former dressing the latter. Philosophy creates overlays that explain literature, which was bereft of such ability all by itself. This is the position of the mainstay of Continental theorists on philosophy and literature that have been so popular over the past twenty-five years. But what would it be like for literature to actually be philosophy all on its own?

In order to set the groundwork for this, we need to modify the goals of philosophy. For Analytic philosophers (especially) the discipline is about exactitude that can only be found in deductive logic. A sound argument is necessary—it cannot be otherwise. Aristotle made us all feel very comfortable in this model. Kant sealed the deal. Along the way were handmaidens who helped us feel at home with such a conception of the field. But as Dr. Johnson has said, there are topics that cannot be depicted with apodictic certainty.³ Plausibility becomes the new goal. This new goal is more akin to induction and abduction than it is to deduction. And abduction is a great favorite among those who profess American Philosophy!

How is this carried out? Dr. Johnson gives us an overview in his Coss Lecture.⁴ This has to do with pre-constructional devices that can be evaluated on their own terms such as plot, character, physical description, and the various tropes. In our co-authored book, Dr. Johnson sets these out in a rubric so that those taking a philosophy class (where this book is used) can better construct a short story response by employing the proper tools. And who better to tell students (or anyone else for that matter) how to write a short story than Dr. Johnson?

If literature can really be philosophy, then it has to be part of the repertoire that is taught to introductory philosophy students to use throughout their careers. Instead of only dealing in deductive logic responses to deductive presentations (hereafter called direct discourse artifacts), there must be room for fictive narrative philosophy, a sub-category of indirect logical discourse (the induction and abduction that was just mentioned). There are four models for doing this. The first model depicts the way philosophy is normally taught.

Table 1 presents four alternatives. At the writing of this, the overwhelming number of classes teaching philosophy in the West use the first option only (Direct Discourse in artifact and response). There are a few using an artifact of Indirect Discourse Fictive Narrative Philosophy with a Direct Discourse response. These tend to be either the aforementioned Continental philosophers or case-oriented classes in business ethics, medical ethics, or environmental ethics. Then there are the courses that are heavy on extended thought experiments: metaphysics, epistemology, and inductive/abductive logic (taught as probability theory). Of course, there are also those valiant souls teaching philosophy and literature (generally from a philosophy department).

The real revolution will occur when we get professors teaching with an Indirect Discourse Fictive Narrative Philosophy response with both sorts of artifacts. This means philosophy teachers must learn a little about teaching storytelling. Therein lies the problem.

Table 1.

Integrating Literature as Philosophy into the Canon.

Most philosophers in the Western analytic tradition fancy themselves as logicians and scientists. This is because these disciplines seek the certainty that deductive...