David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism

Identifies philosophical scepticism as a major theme across Wallace’s oeuvre, in both fiction and non-fiction

• Unearths Wallace’s engagement with a long tradition of philosophical scepticism beyond the usual frame of postmodernism, drawing links between ancient and modern scepticism, and between existentialism, pragmatism, and ordinary language philosophy, taking in a range of figures from the history of philosophy such as: Plato, Pyrrho, Descartes, Hume, Mill, James, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Cavell
• Uses Wallace’s work to think through recent trends in literary studies, such as the turn against the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ of movements such as ‘postcritique’ and ‘surface reading’
• Provides a new frame for understanding Wallace studies as bound up in dynamics of trust and distrust that the writing itself provokes
• Draws on original archival research to reveal the depth of Wallace’s engagement with sceptical themes

David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism examines the role of scepticism and doubt in Wallace’s work, showing that they are of fundamental importance to his writing in its form and its themes. Wallace’s work articulates a deep ambivalence about the value of scepticism, on the one hand presenting practical and moral arguments for the value of conviction and belief, while on the other hand being committed to a sceptical project of opposing certainty and dogma. On a formal level, Wallace’s writing both solicits the reader’s trust and provokes the reader’s scepticism. This dynamic is responsible for the polarised responses of absolute trust and dissenting scepticism that characterise the work’s reception. By putting these responses into dialogue with the work’s internal treatment of the question of scepticism, this book illuminates the core philosophical investments that drive the work, and the dynamics that have so far governed its reception.