Is Modern Philosophy Literature?

Jim Holt is an American Philosopher whose book, Why Does the World Exist?, was the topic for my philosophy presentation early in this semester. I had no idea the author would attempt to solve the question in his title so literally. It was interesting to see his thought process in each chapter, and his attempt at objectivity by interviewing people from different ideological beliefs in order to get as close as possible to a clear and true answer. When I saw his opinion blog on the NY Times website, I got curious. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/is-philosophy-literature/?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0  

I found the article pretty interesting. Jim Holt has a way of breaking down philosophy in a way that makes it easy to understand. In his article, he’s basically talking about the change in philosophy between the classical historical roots of Plato’s Republic, and modern academic writings which are focused more scientific values, and winning arguments as opposed to stating wise quotes like older essays. When I was reading the article at first, I was assuming that he was going to put down modern philosophical writings, only because of how much the style has changed over the years. Holt points out that most people who say they enjoy philosophy are referring to famous authors like Spinoza, not the modern academic sort. Holt compares philosophy to literature in the sense that older works are more poetic as opposed to modern versions, which is why I was surprised to learn at the end he seemed to speak in support to the modern writings, as long as they were interesting. 

Holt explains his new perspective by referring to Evelyn Waugh, an English writer who said “the right use of language,[literature, is composed of] lucidity, elegance, and individuality”. Specifically, how “elegance is the quality in a work of art that imparts direct pleasure”. 

Now I can understand that there are exceptions to this rule, but I don’t quite understand how Holt can ignore his previous definition of modern of modern philosophical writings as “focused on science”, which to me seems like the opposite of art, and more accurately described as critical writing. Nevertheless, Holt does back up his argument with Waugh’s description of elegance, being the quality that imparts direct pleasure. I suppose his perspective is, as long as a piece of writing gives pleasure, the subject of the writing itself doesn’t determine if said writing is literature or not.