Words and wisdom

"Philosophy through the prism of literature", as Martin Amis has it in your profile ("Succeeded as a writer, now time for plan B", February 23), isn't enough for creativity and telling perceptive from shallow, mere spin from substance. The question is: which philosophy? As Hamlet says, it takes "thinking" to make things good or bad, true or false. In Simone Weil's words, "a mind enclosed in language is in prison".

David Rodway
Woldingham, Surrey