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Literature, for philosophy and for philosophers, is like the "Irish Question' for nineteenth-century British politicians. Not only does "the literary' resemble a colonized land which, at once both inside and outside the imperial power of "philosophy', continuously disturbs the seemingly ordered doings of the colonizing centre, but also, as soon as a "philosophical' answer to the problem is arrived at, the question — the subjects — change. Of course, this is in part what Jacques Derrida is hinting at when he discusses the "strange institution' of literature. More prosaically, it reflects a common and important teaching experience: for every assertion about literature, a literary counter-example can be found; for nearly every interpretation another equally plausible interpretation can be discussed. These pedagogic experiences are not just accidents, but, I suspect, deeply ingrained in the very experience of the literary.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230598621_15

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