The ancient quarrel and the dream of writing

Smith, R.

doi:10.1111/1467-9752.12324

The ancient quarrel and the dream of writing

Smith, R.

Authors

Professor Richard Smith r.d.smith@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to question and finally reject the tendency to see philosophy and literature (especially poetry) as essentially distinct forms of language, a tendency which sometimes extends to regarding them as mutually exclusive and to be understood as in some way in opposition to each other. The idea of that opposition is generally supposed to go back as far as Plato, at least, and much of what I write here will concern just how we are to read what we find on the matter in Plato's Republic, how we are to read Plato's dialogues in general and, even more broadly, how we are to read what comes to us under the title of philosophy. It is Plato, I suggest, who supplies us with a powerful way of understanding the instability of the literature/philosophy binary, and who, at the end of Republic, invites us to witness its collapse.

Citation

Smith, R. (2018). The ancient quarrel and the dream of writing. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 52(4), 592-608. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12324

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 27, 2018
Online Publication Date	Mar 28, 2019
Publication Date	Oct 30, 2018
Deposit Date	Dec 18, 2018
Publicly Available Date	Mar 28, 2021
Journal	Journal of Philosophy of Education
Print ISSN	0309-8249
Electronic ISSN	1467-9752
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	52
Issue	4
Pages	592-608
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12324

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Smith, R. (2018). The ancient quarrel and the dream of writing. Journal of Philosophy of Education 52(4): 592-608 which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12324. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.