Pedro Franco, “The Virtues in Reading Poetry,” in Educação, Justiça e Direitos Humanos: Num Mundo Em Transformação, ed. Carlos V. Estêvão et al., Axioma Series in Pedagogy and Philosophy of Education 4 (Braga: Axioma - Publicações da Faculdade de Filosofia, 2023), 349–66, https://doi.org/10.17990/AxiSeries/2023_04_349.
| Item Type | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Editor | Carlos V. Estêvão |
| Editor | José Manuel Martins Lopes |
| Editor | Ana Paula Pinto |
| Editor | Artur Ilharco Galvão |
| Editor | João Carlos Onofre Pinto |
| Editor | Maria José Ferreira Lopes |
| Editor | Paulo C. Dias |
| Author | Pedro Franco |
| Abstract | The main argument of this article is that the study of literature and reading poetry more specifically can promote the exercise of certain virtues, contributing to the formation of a more tolerant, altruistic and hospitable human character. The argument is built on a virtue ethics approach, in which the enlargement of moral imagination and empathy take a preponderant place, as well as the virtue of attention, following the line of arguments of the philosopher Iris Murdoch (1992). We will begin by debating proposals such as Wayne Booth’s (1988), who inaugurated this explicit relationship between literary studies and ethics; Martha Nussbaum’s (1990) and Alasdair MacIntyre’s (1982; 2016), renowned philosophers of virtue ethics who have highlighted the importance of literature in learning moral philosophy; as well as Charles Altieri’s (1998) critique of these proposals. We will try to substantiate that empathy and the exercise of attention take place through the understanding of the different speech genres present in the literary text, as defended by Mikhail Bakhtin (1986), giving special emphasis to different practices of reading poetry and highlighting the parallel with the exercise of attention and empathy in social relationships. To open the discussion and for greater clarity of argument, we will also present a case study: that of the philosopher Richard Rorty, a defender of human rights and an avid reader of great literary works, namely poetry, as his published work attests. We will read his analysis of a poem by Philip Larkin, at the opening of his book Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (1989) to assess his ability to free himself from philosophical prejudice to meet the other, and to question whether these abilities can be linked with more virtuous human relationships. |
| Date | 2023 |
| Language | Portuguese |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.17990/AxiSeries/2023_04_349 |
| Rights | © 2023 Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural |
| Place | Braga |
| Publisher | Axioma - Publicações da Faculdade de Filosofia |
| ISBN | 978-972-697-364-5 |
| Pages | 349-366 |
| Series | Axioma Series in Pedagogy and Philosophy of Education |
| Series Number | 4 |
| Book Title | Educação, Justiça e Direitos Humanos: Num Mundo Em Transformação |
| Date Added | 9/14/2023, 10:06:09 PM |
| Modified | 9/14/2023, 11:30:00 PM |
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