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Afew years back Anna Christina Ribeiro pointed out that there was, and had been for some time, a widespread neglect of poetry by philosophers of art; moreover, the "generalist attitude" toward the philosophical study of literature that underlay this neglect was, she convincingly argued, misguided.1 The distinctive features of poetry (for example, its use of formal devices such as rhyme, meter, and alliteration, as well as its frequent reliance on figurative language) called for a distinct philosophy of poetry rather than what seemed to confront her at that point—a generic philosophy of literature that largely ignored the particular issues raised by the form.
The case for pursuing a philosophy of poetry is strong. Poetry is a historically significant art form that raises challenging philosophical questions in its own right. Thankfully, the tide has turned, and important new works address the topic.2 But poetry has not been the most neglected of the literary forms. What, after all, about the short story?3 It is far more neglected by philosophers than poetry. But, I shall argue, no good reason exists for this neglect. Moreover, philosophers of art ought to attend to the philosophical questions raised by the short story. Making the case for this claim, of course, requires establishing both that philosophical questions are raised by the category and that philosophers have good reasons to attend to those questions. But the first step is to establish how neglected the short story really is.
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Ribeiro pointed out that as of 2009, about 135 articles on poetry or poetics had appeared in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism since its inception in 1942. Up to the present day, this number far outstrips the journal's publications on the short story, which have been limited to a handful of articles on particular stories (e.g., Jorge Luis Borges's "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue") and particular types of stories (e.g., "the initiation story").4 Nothing directly related to the short story appears to have ever been published in the British Journal of Aesthetics.5 One short article by Amihud Gilead focusing on extremely short stories was published in the present journal.6 Nor do general...