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Editorial

Reading, Writing, Thinking

The first few articles in this issue look at literature and its contributions to ethics, to political philosophy, and to our understanding of the nature of language. We asked the very philosophical novelist and short story writer Tibor Fischer to kick things off with a few words about the relationship between philosophy and literature.

In the beginning was the word, so in the beginning there was little difference between literature and philosophy. Heraclitus and others were poets, Empedocles wrote in metre. Plato, well, Plato wrote brilliantly but didn’t like others doing the same … Confucius was mighty polished. Then, then the ideas were good, but the writing got flatter until Nietzsche, who confused you, but made you think, which is what the biz is mostly about.

One thing I’ve learned in my various jobs as a human being, teacher, journalist and writer is that people don’t like the truth (see my last work, Possibly Forty Ships).

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