Philosophical Meta-Reflections on Literary Studies

"This book takes up key meta-questions in the humanities, with focus on contemporary literary studies, philosophically examines the nature of knowledge therein and addresses the effervescent question of 'relevance.' Its title is a variation on that of M. H. Abrams's collection of essays and reviews Doing Things with Texts (1989), which in turn echoes J. L. Austin's influential work How to Do Things with Words (1955). Effective research and teaching in any discipline depend upon being able to understand its raison d'e tre and the modes of reasoning possible in it. Chapter 1 endeavours to articulate a philosophical rationale for the existence of the humanities with reference to what it calls the human world process. The purpose of theory and philosophy lies in offering a conceptual grasp on the world and a clarification of our implicit assumptions. The chapter argues that knowledge in the humanities is of a different order from that in the sciences, and so is its social relevance. Humanistic knowledge has broader subjective and cultural bases, and demands articulation of its connections to the 'real' world, to everyday life"--