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What can literature offer to philosophical reflection? Can literature address experiences that evade theoretical philosophy? Or, does fictional writing conflict with rigorous philosophical inquiry? The long-standing separation of philosophy and literature begins when Plato bans poetry and tragedy from the ideal city in the Republic. This seminar focuses on nineteenth and twentieth century thinkers that challenge the predisposition against literature through different attempts to write the “philosophical novel.” In this seminar, we will take seriously the philosophical stakes of literary texts, and investigate how and why literature offers a unique perspective for philosophical reflection. We will read texts by Plato, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Iris Murdoch, and David Foster-Wallace.