We have not yet discussed various novelists (e.g.: Dostoyevsky, Melville) whose characters sometimes engage in philosophical musings or dispute. These are not really philosophical dialogues in their method or purpose, but they can sometimes be rather sharp. Here's a short exchange in Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece Blood Meridian between the young protagonist and a hermit he encounters in Texas in the 1840s:
Lost ye way in the dark, said the old man. He stirred the fire, standing slender tusks of bone up out of the ashes.
The kid didnt answer.
The old man swung his head back and forth. The way of the transgressor is hard. God made this world, but he didnt make it to suit everybody, did he?
I dont believe he much had me in mind.
Aye, said the old man. But where does a man come by his notions. What world's he seen that he liked better?
I can think of better places and better ways.
Can ye make it be?
No.
No. It's a mystery. A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of all creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?
I dont know.
Believe that.
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