Artful Truths: The Philosophy of Memoir
Helena de Bres
Abstract
This book provides a concise and comprehensive guide to the fundamental philosophical questions that arise when writing a literary work about one’s own life. What is memoir? Is all memoir ultimately fiction? Should memoirists aim to tell the truth, and if so, what kind of truth, how much of it, and why? What do memoirists owe the people they write about? What value does memoir have, for writers, readers and others? In addressing these questions, the book delves into a wide range of issues in philosophy, including the definition of literature, the nature of the self, the limits of knowledge, th ... More
This book provides a concise and comprehensive guide to the fundamental philosophical questions that arise when writing a literary work about one’s own life. What is memoir? Is all memoir ultimately fiction? Should memoirists aim to tell the truth, and if so, what kind of truth, how much of it, and why? What do memoirists owe the people they write about? What value does memoir have, for writers, readers and others? In addressing these questions, the book delves into a wide range of issues in philosophy, including the definition of literature, the nature of the self, the limits of knowledge, the concept of truth, the responsibilities of friendship, the relationship between ethics and art, and the question of what makes a life meaningful. The book takes the many philosophical challenges directed at memoirists seriously, but is ultimately a defense of a genre that, for all its perplexities—and maybe because of them—is rich in value and widely loved. The book is mainly aimed at writers, teachers, students and readers of autobiography, as well as readers of philosophy, and is written in a style accessible to a general audience.
Keywords:
memoir,
autobiography,
writing,
literature,
philosophy,
truth,
fiction,
ethics,
self
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2021 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226788135 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: May 2022 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226793948.001.0001 |
