Basis of genre in a literary novel

However, if philosophical knowledge is essentially discursive, how can a literary novel, which is a work of art, be philosophical? The mere presence of philosophical ideas, questions, problems, or conversations in a novel, no matter their abundance, does not necessarily make it philosophical. If it is philosophical, its philosophical dimension, or character, must be embedded as a potentiality in its literary dimension, but as such a potentiality, it can never be discursive, even though the experience of this dimension may provoke philosophical questions, insights, or ideas in the mind of the person who reads the novel. Thus, the question the philosophical novelist faces is how to transform content of conceptual meaning into a potential luminous presence, that is, into a meaning we directly intuit as a quality of the situation - event, action, conversation, or problem - we experience in the process of reading the novel aesthetically. How is this possible?

It is critically important to recognize that any symbolic form, philosophic, scientific, or artistic, originates from what a large number of philosophers and artists call pre-reflective intuition. This type of intuition is the birthplace of the different types of meaning and consequently any form of symbolic expression - concept, metaphor, image, idea, value, figure of speech, or theory. Do we not call the state of mind, which precedes the formation of a hypothesis, a “hunch”? Does the creative act in any area of human experience, theoretical or practical, not originate from an intuition that emerges from an encounter with a problematic aspect of the universe, or from contemplation on the meaning of this or that type of experience? Does the philosopher's system not originate from, and rest on, her fundamental intuition of the nature of the universe as a whole and the meaning of human life? We may view this intuition as “cognitive clay” that can be formed in a multitude of different ways. We should always remember that the realm of inquiry in art and philosophy is the realm of human values: meaning. The mystery that permeates the universe, the purpose of human life, the problems people face in the course of daily living, the basis of happiness, the problem of evil, the dynamics of human nature - yes, these and related issues which occupy the attention of the philosopher also occupy the attention of the artist.

Let us concede, my critic would now ask, that the intuition and articulation of meaning is the preeminent interest of the philosopher and the artist alike. Essential features of philosophicalness are argument, analysis, and demonstration - does the philosophical novelist argue or demonstrate? No! The philosophical novelist does not argue, analyze, or demonstrate. She presents; she depicts. She draws a picture of a moral, metaphysical, religious, social, or political situation philosophically. This picture may or may not contain discursive philosophical discourse, but instead reveals the life of the values that are implicit in the situation in the fullness of their truth, problematic character, and possibilities. This kind of picture provokes the reader to think about the situation and see its meaning and relevance to the individual and society, creates a moment of self-consciousness and hopefully self-examination, kindles our sense of curiosity, in short, transforms the reader into a momentary philosopher. How can any literate person read The Death of Ivan Ilych without having a direct encounter with the ugly face of death, without asking about its significance in her life, without feeling guilty if she discovers that the life she has been leading is a sham? The magic of the literary novel is that it discloses the world of the possible. The potential for living in a more profound and wider world of meaning always exists. When we enter this world, we cannot remain speechless; we become

“voluntary residents” in it. In the following section, I shall illustrate how philosophicalness inheres in a literary novel and comes to life in the aesthetic experi - ence of the reader. The novel I shall select for analysis is Mitias's The Philosopher and the Devil.

Analysis of One Metaphor

I have so far argued that the literary novel (a) should declare its genre identity from within and (b) the ontological locus of this identity is its significant form. This two-fold assertion implies that genre identity inheres as a potentiality in the significant form and comes to life as an aesthetic object in the aesthetic experience. The world of this object is a world of meaning. A careful examination of these two propositions will readily show that if a novel is philosophical, its philosophicalness should be an integral part of the aesthetic object; it should shine as the essential quality of the aesthetic experience. How can this quality inhere in the novel as a potentiality in the significant form, and become actual in the aesthetic experience?

The thesis I shall now elucidate and defend in this last section of the paper is that philosophicalness can inhere in the significant form of the novel as a potentiality and become actual in the aesthetic experience inasmuch as its main characters, and to some extent its scenes and events that are metaphorical in natureMitias, M. The Philosopher and the Devil. London, 2018.. Metaphor is an essential artistic category. A character can be a metaphor when she stands for a philosophical quality, and she stands for such a quality when she exemplifies it, in what she does, i.e., in her action, so that the action reveals the quality. Does Rodin's The Thinker not exemplify pictorially the quality of thoughtfulness, usually characteristic of philosophers, in a bronze statue? We intuit this quality directly, by acquaintance, not by a conceptual process. In this context, the character instantiates the essential feature of philosophicalness in the way she speaks, feels, makes decisions, responds to questions and problems, and acts. If, for example, she suddenly finds herself in a problematic situation, she does not respond to it impulsively or emotionally but rationally, reflectively. If the situation involves the value of justice, she reflects on the rule of justice, evaluates the social, psychological, material, and cultural dimensions of the situation and then translates the essence of the rule into judgment and the judgment into action. This attitude applies to every question or problem she faces in her life. With the wand of creativity in her hand, the novelist translates the essence of the values, beliefs, and questions in the novel into living pictures. Moreover, as a type, the philosophical character always aims at the central values, questions, and problems of human life: happiness, beauty, love, death, hate, justice, freedom, or truth. She always stands as the spokesperson of these values and questions. Is it an accident that all the philosophical novels that punctuate the tapestry of a literary novel struggle with questions and values such as freedom, love, God, faith, and the meaning of human life? One quick look at novels such as Moby Dick, Of Human Bondage, Middle March, Metamorphoses, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Magic Mountain will lend credibility to this claim.

Although the philosophical character is an imaginary construct, and although she is essentially a depiction, she acquires a life of her own in the creative hands

of the novelist: she becomes a substantial, living reality in the aesthetic experience. We see, feel, and think her the way we see, feel, and think a real person. Indeed, we experience the character as more real than the people we encounter in the streets of social life because we experience her more intimately, more truly, more directly than we experience the ordinary person.

But, my critic would ask, some novels such as Proust's Remembrance and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov include philosophical conversations and sometimes arguments - can we still classify them as philosophical novels? Yes. Rational discourse exists in many literary novels. Their presence is secondary, auxiliary, not primary. Their function is to illuminate the meaning of a value, the truth of a belief, or the dynamics of a moral or social problem. They can per - form this kind of function only when a philosophical context requires their presence. We should view the prevalence of philosophical thought in a novel like The Brothers Karamazov in light of this fact. How can any symbolic form communicate the most difficult questions and values such as evil, God's existence, hate, a lust for power, love, death, or freedom without some appeal to explanation, argument, or conversation? Besides, can we fully comprehend the significance of philosophical thought apart from its literary context in which it is embedded? We think and comprehend it in The Brothers Karamazov in terms of this very context: What do people really want? Do they want freedom, true education, a life of Christian love, of beauty, of justice, or alas! of security, a satisfied stomach, and a few crumbs of pleasure, love, freedom, and social recognition? Can we grasp the full significance of these questions, which reach a climax in the Grand Inquisitor scene, but within the context of the sudden visit of Jesus to Seville during which he resurrects a child from the dead and then has a chilling, ironic conversation with the Grand Inquisitor? Let me probe the main challenge of this question in some detail by a focused look at The Philosopher and the Devil.

Since philosophicalness inheres as a stratum in the literary dimension of the literary novel, and since literariness inheres in the novel qua significant form, it would be prudent to begin the analysis of The Philosopher and the Devil with a synopsis of the novel, primarily because it is a recently published literary work. I shall highlight the parts that are relevant to its literary and philosophical dimensions.

Andrey Adamczevsky is a highly respected and admired professor of philosophy at Lambeth College in Jackson, Tennessee. He is married and has two children, a daughter called Antigonis and a son called Richard. His wife, Amanda, is a professor of psychology at Lambeth College. She is having an affair with a psychology professor who also teaches at Lambeth College. But, Andrey, who knows about the affair, is a devoted husband. He loves his wife truly, loyally, and never loses hope of the possibility that she will return to him. He is also a loving parent and feels strongly attached to Antigonis. Andrey is working on a most important project: the design and implementation of a decent world order in which individuals and nations can thrive under the conditions of freedom, justice, peace, and prosperity.

We are introduced to Andrey when he is recovering from serious heart surgery. One morning, soon after his wife leaves for college, he hears a knock at the door of his house, but he is not allowed to answer any phone or house calls. His wife reminded him on more than one occasion that this is the surgeon's instruction and that he should act accordingly. Andrey tries to heed this instruction but he fails only because of the visitor's persistent knocking at the door. Thinking that it must be important, he feels an urge to peek through the peephole to see the visitor, but he is unable to detect anybody on the other side of the door. Nevertheless, the knocks keep streaming into his ears. He peeks through the peephole again, but the entrance to his house is empty! After repeating this process a few times, he hears a friendly voice that addresses him as Professor Adamczevsky, as if the owner of the voice knows him.

Baffled, Andrey reluctantly opens the door. To his surprise, the visitor, who was invisible a second ago, becomes visible at the threshold of the door. He introduces himself as the devil. The devil? Impossible! Andrey has no choice but to allow the intruder into his living room. They have a lengthy conversation on the source, nature, and purpose of natural and human evil in the universe. During the course of the conversation, the devil tries to convince Andrey that he is indeed the devil even though the professor does not believe in his existence. However, the devil reminds the professor of his lectures on Empedocles who theorized that the universe is ruled by two cosmic forces: Love and Strife. Love is the source and principle of union and construction in the universe, while Strife is the source and principle of separation and destruction in the universe. The devil is an embodiment of the cosmic force of Strife. Nothing whatsoever in the uni - verse can exist without him, since separation is a necessary condition of change, and since change is a necessary condition for the creation of anything! The moment something comes into being he acts on its gradual destruction!

Andrey inquires about the purpose of the devil's visit, and the devil is blunt: Andrey should desist from his work on the design and implementation of the decent world order project! Why? The devil is again blunt: Andrey's project is an act of love. His mission as the devil is to frustrate Love's projects, and he is determined to frustrate this project. Andrey declines the devil's request. Disappointed, the devil warns the philosopher that he has a plan that will make him change his mind, but Andrey ignores the devil's warning.

Well, the devil begins to execute his plan, first by inclining his son to be a drifter and later on a criminal, then by inflicting on Andrey the most horrible and devastating nightmares which interferes with his work at the college and soon leads to his suspension from the philosophy department, then by the news that his wife has left him alone with the children, then by sending Richard to prison, then by leading his daughter into a serious car accident, and finally by inflicting upon him a fatal heart attack. During all this time, the devil visits Andrey and tries to dissuade him from his pursuit of the world order project, but Andrey declines his request. When Andrey is reduced to a lump of flesh and bones and is about to die, the devil visits him again and gives him one last chance, but Andrey refuses to accept the devil's request. In a state of indescribable rage, the devil curses Andrey and disappears forever, while Andrey regains his life and thrives again. The devil does not have authority over the souls of human beings!

Read as a story, The Philosopher and the Devil is not a literary work and, consequently, it is not a philosophical novel. Most people would read it as a religious, psychological, or perhaps amusing story in which a philosopher defeats the devil in a duel. Some may read it as a variation of the well-known story of Job in the Old Testament. Yet, this is a philosophical novel par excellence. If we read it aesthetically, we recognize, the moment Andrey meets the devil at the threshold of his house, that the devil is not an anthropomorphic being but an embodiment of evil, the same evil the ordinary person, the philosopher, the theologian, and the artist abhor and seek to understand. Even though Andrey does not believe in his reality, he accepts it implicitly only because evil exists. The devil did not pay a friendly or a social visit to Andrey; he comes with an evil plan: the destruction of a project of love. This realization by the reader marks the transition from reading the novel as a story to reading it as a work of art. If the devil in the Christian sense does not exist, why would a magical being, one that can assume any physical form or appear and disappear instantly, suddenly appear at the door of the most celebrated professor in Jackson, Tennessee? The mere reflection on this incredible fact, which cannot escape the aesthetic reader, beckons the unfolding of the world of the aesthetic object that is potential in the novel as a significant form. She cannot anymore read it as a story but as a narrative with a “deep” meaning - as a world of meaning. If evil is not a fact the way cats and stones are facts, what is it? How should we understand it? Again, if change, which both the devil and Andrey agree is king in the universe and that everything in it, including human beings, is a ripple in the cosmic process, why should people strive for the realization of human ideals? Are these ideals worth living and dying for? Andrey was willing to die rather than surrender his soul to the devil - was he a wise or a foolish person? The author of the novel does not give answers to these or any other questions raised in the novel. He created the conditions by asking them. These conditions come to life in the dramatic depiction of the duel between the devil and Andrey. However, what makes it possible for this transition from the ordinary to the aesthetic way of reading the novel to occur? I will not be too much amiss if I propose that the power, which makes this change possible, is metaphor. Metaphor is a powerful figure of speech; it derives its power from the fact that its very essence is expressive in character. It does not contain its meaning by implication or within the folds of a concept but by signifying it, by directly pointing to a meaning that transcends its symbolic form. The more the signification of a metaphor increases, the more powerful it becomes. Can one overlook the supreme importance of good and evil in human life?

The two main characters, the philosopher and the devil, are metaphors. The basis of this metaphorical application is simile. These two characters represent the forces of good and evil in the world. These forces are in conflict, and the conflict is depicted as a duel between Andrey and the devil. The force of good signifies love, beauty, creation, and wisdom, while that of evil signifies destruction, hate, selfishness, exploitation, and ignorance. The duel is not presented as a discursive contest or fight but as a pictorial, yet living, presentation of a series of events, and actions that are weaved into a dramatic portrayal.

But, my critic would insist, what is the ontological status of these two metaphors? I aver that they inhere in the way the author constructed the plot of the novel, that is, in the kind of characters, theme, scenes, and events by which he knitted these elements into a story. As I argued earlier, the capacity of a form to be significant derives from the creative vision of the author and inheres in the kind of form she creates. Signification is what we comprehend when we read the novel aesthetically. It is always embodied in the action of the characters and the aesthetic dimension of the different scenes and events that make up the structure of the novel. In The Philosopher and the Devil, we know Andrey by what he does and by the way he makes his decisions, not by what he says or feels about himself, and certainly not by what his colleagues or the devil say about him. He reveals himself to us in the way he treats his son, wife, daughter, college officials, and the devil. Similarly, although the devil presents himself as the real devil and declares his identity and plan to Andrey at the beginning of their duel, we really know him and ascertain that he is the real devil in and through his actions. What is revealed by the actions of both characters transcends what is given in their metaphorical articulation.

Concluding Remark

I began this essay with an inquiry into the nature and basis of genre in a literary novel. It is generally recognized that theme is the basis of genre distinction within this soghere. But, as I pointed out, it is not clear how theme exists in the novel and how it functions as a principle of genre distinction: what is the ontological locus of theme in a literary novel? How does it emerge in the aesthetic experience? I focused my attention on the question because if, for example, a novel is romantic, it must declae its romantic identty. This claim is based on the assumption that it cannot make this declaration if the basis of ts identity does not inhere in it. But, how does it inhere in it? In the preceding pages, I eluci - dated and defended the thesis that the theme of the literary novel inheres in its literary dimension, and that this dimension, in turn, inheres in the novel as a signifiant form. Possession of aesthetic qualities is what makes a novel a literary work of art. Theme exists as a potentiality in the merdium of the aesthetic dimension of the literary novel and emerges as an aesthetic object during the process of aesthetic experience. In The Philosopher and the Devil, it exists as a metaphor. The aesthetic object unfolds in the aesthetic experience as a world of meaning. Any refrerence or discourse about the theme of a literary novel, critical or analy- tial, is a reference to or a discourse about this world. It should be the basis of literary appreciation and criticism in a literary novel. In a philosophical novel, the characters as well as the events which make up its plot, are metaphors. In this and similar cases mertaphor, or any type of symbolic form, is the building block of the aesthetic stratum of the literary novel.

References

1. Bell, C. Art. New York: Capricorn Books, 1958. 190 pp.

2. Ingarden, R. The Literary Work of Art. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1979. xxxiii, 415 pp.

3. Kuczynska, A. “Art as a Philosophy,” Dialogue and Universalism, 2018, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 9-150.

4. Mitias, M. (ed.) The Possibility of the Aesthetic Experience. Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff; Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic, 1986. ix, 171 pp.

5. Mitias, M. What Makes an Experience Aesthetic? Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988. 154 pp.

6. Mitias, M. The Philosopher and the Devil. London: Olympia, 2018. 238 pp.

7. Osborne, H. “What Makes an Experience Aesthetic?” The Possibility of the Aesthetic Experience, ed. by M.H. Mitias. Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff; Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic, 1986, pp. 117-138.

8. Porter, B. Philosophy Through Fiction and Film. Upper Sadler River: Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2004. xv, 426 pp.

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