The Cost of Conviction in John Williams’s Stoner

Description

I argue that given a plausible reading of John Williams’s Stoner (1965) the novel throws light on the demands and cost of pursuing a strategy for self-realisation—most famously articulated in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics Bk. 10 but having an important antecedent in Plato’s tripartite division of the soul—which seeks unification of one’s life through the adoption of the single exclusive end of contemplation. The novel does not explicitly argue either for or against such a strategy but rather vividly depicts its difficulties, appeal, and limitations thus leaving the ultimate evaluation up to the reader.

Period	2017 Aug 26
Event title	Filosofidagarna i Uppsala : Filosofidagarna i Uppsala 25-27 augusti 2017
Event type	Conference
Location	Uppsala, SwedenShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National