Sherlock Holmes is probably the most instantly recognizable literary character ever written and yet, his popular image was shaped more by moviegoers than readers. It’s one among many astute observations in The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes (published by University Press of Kentucky), an essay collection edited by philosophy professors Philip Tallow and David Baggett. The entries are remarkable for being lucid, not a guaranty by any means in the world of university presses and academic publishing, especially when the abstractions of philosophy are introduced.
As its title suggests, the collection is chiefly concerned with what Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories have to say about the questions asked and methods employed by philosophers. Sometimes those stories tell us the wrong things; Massimo Pigliacci’s essay “Sherlock’s Reasoning Toolbox” points out that Holmes was a bit sloppy in his use of the words induction and deduction. In “Sherlock Holmes as Epistemologist,” Baggett persuades us that the great sleuth was no mere “logic chopper,” despite the dichotomy in his mind between intellect and emotion. His human vulnerability has helped captivate audiences for over a century.
Andrew Terjesen offers a provocative argument with ramifications well beyond its stated subject in “Was it Morally Wrong to Kill off Sherlock Holmes?” He asks: Can we assign full authorship of the detective to Conan Doyle? After all, our image of Holmes is grounded only in part on his writings. Even during Conan Doyle’s lifetime, the illustrations for his stories by Sidney Paget painted our picture of Holmes by dressing him in a deerstalker cap and Inverness cloak—details Conan Doyle never provided. Paget’s depiction was popularized on Broadway as early as 1899 when actor William Gillette added another visual cue, the calabash pipe.
Basil Rathbone’s cinematic portrayal of Holmes remains the touchstone, even in the era of Morton Downey, Jr. Rathbone carried on all of Paget and Gillette additions and provided a few more. “Elementary, my dear Watson” is a phrase Conan Doyle never wrote, nor did the author imagine Dr. Watson as a bumbling duffer or Inspector Lestrade as such a bungler.
“This image of the world’s greatest consulting detective is the product of many people’s labor and has taken on a life that transcends the original works of Conan Doyle,” Terjesen writes. And it’s true: The difficulty of owning an idea, once widely circulated, poses a problem for intellectual property, especially in our epoch where fans can compose their own Star Wars episodes and post them online. The evolution of Sherlock Holmes is a reminder both of the collaborative nature of creativity and the power of motion pictures to trump text.
