Abstract

Is poetry a topic for philosophical reflection? This paper seeks to argue that it is by exhibiting poetry as a form of knowledge. What the claim that poetry is a form of knowledge amounts to is that something can be knowledge in virtue of being poetical and poetical in virtue of being the (kind of) knowledge it is. Various kinds of skeptical doubt about this claim are considered. It is argued that such doubts are based on distorting pictures of poetry. Two strategies to justify the claim that poetry is a form of knowledge shall be explored. The first strategy is a broadly Wittgensteinian one, relying on grammatical reminders. The second strategy is a broadly Hegelian one, exhibiting poetry as a form of knowledge by showing that the concepts of two other forms of knowledge – practical and second-person knowledge – due to internal incoherences, point beyond themselves towards the concept of poetry.