Philosophical novel

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Philosophical novel

Philosophical novels are works of fiction

Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
in which a significant proportion of the novel is devoted to a discussion of the sort of questions normally addressed in discursive philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical novels would include the so-called novel of ideas, including a significant proportion of science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
, utopian

Utopia

Utopia is a name for an ideal community or society, taken from the Utopia written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, possessing a seemingly perfect social system-politics-legal system....
/dystopian novels

Dystopia

A dystopia is the vision of a society that is the opposite of utopia. A dystopian society is one in which the conditions of life are suffering, characterized by human misery, poverty, oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution....
, and Bildungsroman

Bildungsroman

A bildungsroman is a novelistic genre that arose during the German Enlightenment, in which the author presents the psychological, moral and social shaping of the personality of a protagonist....
.

There is no universally acceptable definition of the philosophical novel, but certain novels would be of key importance in its history.

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Encyclopedia

Philosophical novels are works of fiction

Fiction

Philosophy

Science fiction

Utopia

Dystopia

Bildungsroman

Ibn Tufail

Ibn Tufail was an Al-Andalus-Arab Muslim polymath: an Arabic literature, novelist, Early Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Medicine in medieval Islam, vizier, and court official....
's Philosophus Autodidactus
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan

?ayy ibn Yaq?an was the first Arabic novel and the first philosophical novel, written by Ibn Tufail , an Early Islamic philosophy and Islamic medicine, in early 12th century Al-Andalus....
(12th century), Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus (13th century) and Voltaire

Voltaire

Fran?ois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Age of Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosophy known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberty, including freedom of religion and free trade....
's Candide
Candide

Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a ian the Age of Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, English translations of which have been titled Candide: Or, All for the Best ; Candide: Or, The Optimist ; and Candide: Or, Optimism ....
(1759) are the first clear examples in literary history. Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a Scotland satire writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics the "dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator....
's Sartor Resartus
Sartor Resartus

Thomas Carlyle's major work, Sartor Resartus , first published as a serial in 1833-34, purported to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdr?ckh , author of a tome entitled "Clothes: their Origin and Influence." Teufelsdr?ckh's Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a skeptical...
, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship is the second novel by Goethe, published in 1795-96. While his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, featured a hero driven to suicide by despair, the eponymous hero of this novel undergoes a journey of self-realization....
, Tolstoy

Tolstoy

Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from one Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasili II of Russia....
's War and Peace
War and Peace

War and Peace is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russkiy Vestnik , which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era....
, Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities
The Man Without Qualities

The Man without Qualities is a novel in three books by the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Musil.The main issue of this "story of ideas", which takes place in the time of the Austria-Hungary's last days, is the need to preserve order in a shaken world ....
and Sartre's Nausea are all canonical examples of the philosophical novel. Later examples would include such novels as Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand , was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system called Objectivism ....
's Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in literature in the United States. It was Rand's fourth, List of longest novels, and last novel....
and The Fountainhead
The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead is a 1943 in literature novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and film rights brought her fame and financial security....
, Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963....
's After Many a Summer
After Many a Summer

After Many a Summer is a novel by Aldous Huxley which tells the story of a Hollywood millionaire fearing his impending death. The novel was retitled After Many a Summer Dies the Swan when published in the USA....
and Island, as well as novels by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch

Dame Jean Iris Murdoch Order of the British Empire was an Ireland-born British people author and philosopher, best known for her stories regarding ethical and sexual themes....
and Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess

John Burgess Wilson was an England author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic.His Utopian and dystopian fiction satire A Clockwork Orange, widely considered to be his magnum opus, is by far his most famous novel, and was adapted into a famous, if highly controversial, A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick....
and C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy

Space Trilogy

The Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy of three science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia....
. Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th century philosophy Germans philosophy and classical philology. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, using a distinctive German language style and displaying a fondness for metaphor and aphorism....
's Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Thus Spoke Zarathustra , subtitled A Book for All and None , is a written work by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885....
is perhaps the most well-known example of a philosophical novel.

Novels that might qualify as philosophical novels in terms of subject matter but which proceed by non-discursive means (such as allegory) would be excluded. Richard Adams's Watership Down
Watership Down

Watership Down is a heroic fantasy novel about a small group of rabbits, written by United Kingdom author Richard Adams. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are Anthropomorphism, possessing their own culture, language , proverbs, poetry, and mythology....
, for example, would qualify as having social structures as its subject matter but would be excluded on the grounds that the exploration of these subjects is entirely inferred rather than being the subject of overt discussion or debate.

The classification may also extend to other narrative media, such as film. The Matrix Trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers, contains a number of dialogue scenes that appear to explicitly discuss philosophical concepts and their relationship to the human condition. Other such films containing similar scenes include Mamoru Oshii

Mamoru Oshii

Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker and screenwriter famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling. Presently, Oshii lives in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan with his dogs – a basset hound named Gabriel and a Mixed-breed dog named Daniel ....
's Ghost in the Shell duology

Ghost in the Shell

is a Japanese people cyberpunk manga created by Masamune Shirow, and first published in 1989 in Young Magazine. A collected edition was released in 1991; a sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Man/Machine Interface, was released in 2002; and a serialized manga, Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor, was released in 2003, which contain...
.