Does Fiction Need Philosophy?

American writers rarely seem to have any formal philosophical training, wrote David Joiner to me recently (I am paraphrasing). Reading Flanagan’s biography of Yukio Mishima, he had been struck by how strongly and consistently the Japanese novelist’s work had been infused with his ideas, which amounted to a coherent philosophy concerning beauty, purity, and honour. Joiner, who is himself an accomplished novelist (Lotusland, Guernica Books, 2015), speculated that all great fiction probably has an underpinning of philosophy.