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Brief Lives

Sholem Asch (1880-1957)

Brad Rappaport considers a very philosophical novelist.

Can a novelist be a philosopher? Kant in his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose advocated we should assume the idea of history heading inexorably towards a condition of world peace. He thought this would help motivate us to make it happen, rather than surrendering to helplessness. However, he admitted that it seems rather more like how we think of the story in a novel than history. While we are liable to think of Kant as one of the architects of secular modernity, this prophetic element, this deliberately hopeful and admittedly unfounded account of future historical progress has something of religion about it. But if Kant’s speculative philosophical history is like a novel, perhaps there’s no reason why a historical novel should not pack a philosophical punch.

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