How do we find out what really matters in life? One way might be to ask those who are dying. They might occupy a perspective that allows them to see better what’s trivial and what’s truly significant. The prospect of imminent death might carry them above petty squabbles and the pursuit of money and status, and allow them a clear view of the goods that make our lives worthwhile.
What
really matters, it turns out, is family and relationships and authenticity. At least, that’s what people apparently report from the deathbed. There’s very little systematic research on this question, but there’s some
A new anthology reveals the perils and rewards of philosophical fiction.
GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images
Blending fiction and philosophy is more akin to chemistry than art: It involves creating a synthetic element that rarely occurs in nature in stable form. Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, and Ursula Le Guin have successfully married the two disciplines, but like many lab-created chemicals, works of philosophical fiction are often volatile and downright toxic. An extreme example can be found in the work of Ayn Rand, whose Objectivist novels can be considered a kind of radioactive waste a hazardous substance that nevertheless glows irresistibly in the eyes of the uninitiated. That is to say, when philosophical fiction is bad, it’s really bad.
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