Epistemic Addiction: Reading “Sonny's Blues” with Levinas, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche

Abstract

journal of speculative philosophy, vol. 26, no. 3, 2012 Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA James Baldwin writes that “I underwent, during the summer that I became fourteen, a prolonged religious crisis.” Baldwin dealt with this crisis in his literary works through the strategic use of Christian theological themes and imagery to make compelling critiques of bourgeois cultural and Christian values. So “prolonged” was his “religious crisis” that Christian theological themes permeate Baldwin’s immense literary corpus. Baldwin thus both was influenced by Christianity and critiqued it in his works. Considering these two points, I think it appropriate to begin this essay with a biblical reference to the Christian narrative of the “fall” of humanity. I choose this biblical starting point not only because of Baldwin’s Christian background and literary inclinations but also because I think that this starting point accurately depicts the moral problem that is at work in Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues.” I shall call this moral problem “epistemic addiction.” Epistemic Addiction: Reading “Sonny’s Blues” with Levinas, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche