Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives
Robert Guay
Abstract
In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky uses the commission of a double-murder to initiate and organize a diverse set of philosophical reflections. This volume contains seven essays that approach the novel through philosophical themes in order to offer both readings of the text and continuations of its reflections. The topics addressed include Dostoevsky’s presentation of mind and psychological investigation, as well as the nature of self-knowledge; emotions, in particular guilt and love, and their role in overcoming ambivalence toward existence; the nature of agency; the metaphysical condi ... More
In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky uses the commission of a double-murder to initiate and organize a diverse set of philosophical reflections. This volume contains seven essays that approach the novel through philosophical themes in order to offer both readings of the text and continuations of its reflections. The topics addressed include Dostoevsky’s presentation of mind and psychological investigation, as well as the nature of self-knowledge; emotions, in particular guilt and love, and their role in overcoming ambivalence toward existence; the nature of agency; the metaphysical conditions of freedom and the possibility of evil; the family and the failure of utopian thought; individuality and the authority of the law; and Bakhtin’s conceptions of dialogue and polyphony and his views of the self and generative time.
Keywords:
Dostoevsky,
mind,
self-knowledge,
emotions,
agency,
freedom,
evil,
family,
authority,
Bakhtin
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2019 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190464011 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2019 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190464011.001.0001 |
