Reshaping Philosophy: Michael Boylan's Narrative Fiction

This volume offers original essays exploring what 'fictive narrative philosophy' might mean in the research and teaching of philosophy. The first part of the book presents theoretical essays that examine Boylan's recent books: Teaching Ethics with Three Philosophical Novels and Fictive Narrative Philosophy: How Literature can Act as Philosophy. The second and third part offer essays on how Boylan executes his theory in the practice within his novels from his two series De Anima and Arche. The book clearly shows the unique aspects of the fictive narrative philosophy approach. First, it makes story-telling accessible to wide audiences. Second, story-telling techniques invoke devices that can set out complicated existential problems to the reader that offer an additional approach to thorny problems through the presentation of lived experience. Third, the discussion of these devices is a way to explore philosophical problemsin a way that many can profit from. The book concludes with an essay in which Boylan responds to the critical challenges set out in Part One and the practical criticism set out in Parts Two and Three. Boylan addresses the key claims made by his objectors and defends his position. He engages with the authors in the way his theory is matched against his actual novels. This is useful reading for both philosophers and professors of literature teaching introductory as well as upper-level courses in the fields of philosophy, literature and criticism.

Auteur

Wanda Teays is a Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint Mary's University In Los Angeles. She is the author of Doctors and Torture; Business Ethics Through Movies: A Case Study Approach; Seeing the Light: Exploring Ethics Through Movies; and Second Thoughts: Critical Thinking for a Diverse Society. She is editor of: Analyzing Violence Against Women; and Ethics in the AI, Technology, and Information Age (co-edited with Michael Boylan); Global Bioethics & Human Rights: Contemporary Perspectives, 2nd ed. (co-edited with Alison Dundes Renteln); and Bioethics, Justice & Health Care (co-edited with Laura M. Purdy).

Contenu

Introduction to the Text (Wanda Teays).- Part I: Theory - Preface to Part One: Reflections on Reshaping Philosophy and the Emergence of Un-Ordered Pairs, Michael Boylan.- Chapter 1. Boylan's Fictional Narratives and the Reshaping of Philosophy, (Jeffrey R. Di Leo).- Chapter 2. How Can Fiction Contribute to Critical Race Theory? (Tina Fernandes Botts).- Chapter 3. Philosophy Plays: A Neo-Socratic Way of Performing Public Philosophy, (Edward H. Spence).- Chapter 4. Processing Fiction, (Peter Tagore Tan).-Part II: The De Anima Novels -Preface to Part Two: What is the Aim of the De Anima Novels? (Michael Boylan).- Chapter 5. The Extinction of Desire, Narrative Identity and the Good Life, (Robert Paul Churchill).- Chapter 6. Rainbow Curve, Moral Change, Racial Justice, (Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez).- Chapter 7. To the Promised Land: Ethics, Religion and the Power of Storytelling, (Virginia L. Warren).- Chapter 8. Free Will vs. Fate in Maya: An Irish-American History, (Wanda Teays).- Part III: The Arche Novels - Preface to Part Three: What is the Aim of The Arche Novels (Michael Boylan).- Chapter 9. Naked Reverse and The Downfall of the Cartesian-Self: Introducing a Feminist Characterization of Who We Are, (Deborah S. Mower).- Chapter 10. Revolutionary Agency, Gender, and Integrity: The Story of T-Rx and Mary Taylor, (Per Bauhn).- Chapter 11. The Long Fall of the Ball from the Wall: Reflections on Child Maltreatment, (Simona Giordano).- Part IV: Using Fictive Narrative Philosophy to Teach Philosophy.- Chapter 12. Fictive Narrative Philosophy as Necessary in the Classroom, (Alan Tomhave).- Chapter 13. Narrative For a Contemporary Citizenship, (Eddy M. Souffrant).- Part V: Boylan Responds to his Commentators.- Chapter 14. A Reply to my Colleagues, (Michael Boylan).