Literature:
* Primary Goal: To create an aesthetic experience, evoke emotions, and tell a compelling story. This is achieved through narrative, character development, imagery, symbolism, and stylistic choices. Truth is often explored indirectly, through fictional representations of reality.
* Methods: Narrative, characterization, setting, plot, figurative language, poetic devices, style.
* Focus: Imaginative exploration of human experience, often emphasizing individual experiences and perspectives. Deals with subjective truths and emotional realities.
* Evaluation: Judged based on artistic merit, effectiveness of style, originality, impact on the reader, and contribution to literary tradition.
* Examples: Novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays (some literary essays blur the line).
Philosophy:
* Primary Goal: To understand fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language through logical argumentation and conceptual analysis. It aims for systematic and reasoned inquiry into these areas. Truth is pursued directly through rigorous argumentation.
* Methods: Conceptual analysis, logical argumentation, thought experiments, empirical observation (in some branches like philosophy of science), historical analysis.
* Focus: Abstract concepts, universal principles, and systematic inquiry into fundamental questions. Deals with objective truth and reasoned justification.
* Evaluation: Judged based on the logical coherence of arguments, the strength of evidence, the clarity of concepts, and its contribution to philosophical understanding.
* Examples: Treatises on ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, logic, political philosophy.
Overlap:
The line between literature and philosophy can become blurred. For example:
* Philosophical novels: Novels that explore complex philosophical ideas, often through the actions and dialogues of characters (e.g., *Crime and Punishment*, *Sophie's World*).
* Literary philosophy: Philosophical arguments presented in a literary style, using narrative and storytelling to convey ideas (e.g., some works by Nietzsche or Kierkegaard).
* Essays: Can be either literary or philosophical depending on their purpose and method.
In short: Literature *shows* while philosophy *argues*. Literature uses imaginative means to explore human experience, while philosophy uses reason and logic to understand fundamental questions about the world and our place in it. They are different tools for exploring similar, but not identical, terrains.