Matt Prout has written a profound consideration of Wallace’s work that doubles as an original investigation into the relationship between literature and philosophy more broadly. David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism is a joy to read: stylish and engaging, patient but not pedantic, equal parts amusing and analytically precise.
- Adam Kelly, University College Dublin,
David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism examines the role of scepticism and doubt in Wallace's work, showing that they are of fundamental importance to his writing in its form and its themes. Wallace's work articulates a deep ambivalence about the value of scepticism, on the one hand presenting practical and moral arguments for the value of conviction and belief, while on the other hand being committed to a sceptical project of opposing certainty and dogma. On a formal level, Wallace's writing both solicits the reader's trust and provokes the reader's scepticism. This dynamic is responsible for the polarised responses of absolute trust and dissenting scepticism that characterise the work's reception. By putting these responses into dialogue with the work's internal treatment of the question of scepticism, this book illuminates the core philosophical investments that drive the work, and the dynamics that have so far governed its reception.
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Identifies philosophical scepticism as a major theme across Wallace’s oeuvre, in both fiction and non-fiction.
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Scepticism in and of David Foster Wallace
1. Different Scepticisms
2. Forms of Doubt: Realism and Scepticism
3. The Problem of Other Minds in ‘Good Old Neon’
4. Scepticism and Faith: David Foster Wallace’s Fideism
5. Seeing (Theoretically) and Swimming (in Practice): Infinite Jest and the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger
6. The Hermeneutics of Suspicion in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
7. Taking Doubt: Intellectual Virtues in Wallace’s Political Essays
8. Is David Foster Wallace Shit?
Conclusion: Scepticism and History
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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Unearths Wallace’s engagement with a long tradition of philosophical scepticism beyond the usual frame of postmodernism, drawing links between ancient and modern scepticism, and between existentialism, pragmatism, and ordinary language philosophy, taking in a range of figures from the history of philosophy such as: Plato, Pyrrho, Descartes, Hume, Mill, James, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Cavell
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781399527224
Publisert
2024-12-31
Utgiver
Edinburgh University Press
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
138 mm
Aldersnivå
UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
256
Forfatter