taking stock: the place of narratives in philosophical education

Abstract

Recently fiction has been given a central role in the engagement in philosophical thinking, especially within an educational setting. We find many configurations of this intersection of the narrative and the philosophical and the variances among them need noting if we are to critically examine how each form works. But there remains a troubling question: can fiction really offer up philosophical ideas without failing as literature and missing the mark as philosophy? While allegories and analogies have a long and fruitful history of elucidating complex philosophical ideas, philosophers have taken pains to differentiate themselves from the crafter of tales. Philosophers have tended to prefer clear and sustained thinking through rational arguments over imaginative suggestion. Fiction is not philosophy. This paper will explore the different forms that narrative-as-philosophy can take and offer an assessment of the relative merits of these stories as invitations to philosophical thinking.