Introduction: Crime and Punishment as a Philosophical Novel

This introductory chapter raises the questions of what the relationship of philosophy and literature might be and, in particular, what might make Crime and Punishment a distinctively philosophical novel. Rather than trying to provide a general answer, I argue that the individual essays of this collection implicitly address these questions by calling for philosophical attention to particular elements of human experience. I then review the diversity of approaches the essays take up in doing so: for example, looking to the workings of language to understand the character of the mind, finding an affective orientation to human existence as a whole, gaining access to a practical standpoint, and responding to a utopian criticism of the traditional family.