Relationships between literature and philosophy: the case of Ivan Karamazov

Abstract

The author argues in favour of defining a clear distinction between literature and philosophy in view of their outright different nature. Intersubjectivity in communication and verifiability of theses are typical in philosophy. He quotes as example the case of Ivan Karamazov and his existential dilemmas which inspired Lev Shestov’s and Nicolai Berdyaev’s philosophical thoughts in order to observe that philosophy covers versatile domains of study such as logic, which is not tied up with literature directly, as well as fields such as philosophy of existence or metaphysics which have been drawing all along from literary output indirectly as a source of inspiration and directly providing strictly philosophical substance for polemics and studies. None of that jeopardizes the independence of philosophy from literature.