Recent attempts within Anglo-American aesthetics to delineate an intellectually fruitful relationship between philosophy and literature are usually proposed as compensatory epistemologies: literature overcomes limitations built into the traditional modes whereby philosophers construe knowledge- claims. But what if a major work of literature&mdash\;as is the case in John Milton&rsquo\;sParadise Lost&mdash\;explicitly \;rejects \;philosophy&rsquo\;s objectives\, holding that philosophy is implicated in the pursuit of a corrupt and unworthy form of knowing? From such a stance\, philosophy&rsquo\;s shortcoming is &mdash\; ironically &mdash\; philosophical: if one genuinely seeks understanding\, philosophy would send one down the wrong track. Poetry of such kind does not invite philosophers of literature to somehow harmonize the philosophy-literature divide. Instead\, one is required to sharpen the philosophy-poetry disjunction\, clarifying the stakes involved in keeping apart these distinct attitudes to acquiring knowledge\, to leading a meaningful existence\, and to the non-obvious relationships between these objectives..
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The London Aesthetics Forum (Institute of Philosophy) is generously supported by the \;British Society of Aesthetics \;
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