Philosophy is literature, and other provocative thoughts
September, 17; 2026. By Arscodex
The lake of oblivion still
According to his biographies and other studies of his work and legacy, Sartre rejected the Nobel Prize because he believed it would diminish the stature of his philosophical work. Yet, with all due respect, we believe Sartre was mistaken to turn down the award; for, as the title of this article asserts, "philosophy is literature."
Continuing our exploration of these ideas, we might note that Western philosophy—following the Greeks, and Aristotle in particular—consists of a "collection of poorly arranged aphorisms" (note the second provocation in this article so far), with the possible exceptions of Kant’s work, the efforts of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and perhaps a few other instances. Consider, for example, the summaries often made of the voluminous works of profound thinkers like Hobbes: "Man is a wolf to man." Or the phrase that encapsulates Descartes’s work: "I think, therefore I am." Or the statement "Hell is other people"—a phrase famously uttered by our aforementioned Jean-Paul Sartre himself.
Ultimately, after Nietzsche proclaimed another famous phrase—"God is dead"—we arrive at the 20th century, a period marked by a succession of philosophers who were nihilists, agnostics (skeptics), atheists, or existentialists—or indeed all of the above. We are referring, for instance, to the aforementioned Jean-Paul Sartre and, to a lesser extent, Albert Camus—both French.
But what is the reality here? And what point is this article trying to make? What we are proposing here is that regarding the afterlife—that plane existing before and after life of which we are completely ignorant, if indeed it exists—absolutely nothing can be verified. There is no way to prove whether any of the proposed ideas actually exist; we cannot even confirm the existence of the afterlife itself. No one knows what lies there, or if there is anything there at all. Thus, metaphorically speaking, human beings are "blind" regarding existence as a whole, as there are planes of reality beyond our knowledge. This connects with the ideas of another Greek philosopher, Plato, and his "Allegory of the Cave."
On the physical plane, all technological advancements—likely including recent developments in AI—fail to resolve metaphysical problems (that is, issues beyond the physical realm). Knowledge or concepts that transcend the physical can only be structured through logic.
Consequently, any ideas we conceive regarding this subject could—and perhaps should—be categorized as literature. This gives rise to the profound and revolutionary statement: "Philosophy is literature." Furthermore, this approach avoids any conflict with individual beliefs or "faith"—that is, our personal convictions about what lies beyond, even though we cannot verify them.
This opens up a vast field of creative possibilities within literature, as almost any thought concerning the afterlife is inherently literary. We can therefore greatly enjoy reading fascinating material without it clashing with our beliefs, since everything falls under the umbrella of literature. In this way, we can appreciate the author's various works—such as the film The lake of oblivion (which, notably, touches upon the Greek myth of the River of Oblivion)—with the understanding that they might be nothing more than literature, or perhaps something else entirely.
Therefore, although our dear Jean-Paul Sartre—already mentioned several times in this article—was successful in life and fared well, he would have fared even better had he accepted the Nobel Prize, which he turned down, on the grounds that "philosophy is literature."
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