Literary notes about Unavoidable (AI summary)
The term "unavoidable" has been deployed in literature as a marker of inevitability, often signifying outcomes or actions that, once set in motion, cannot be circumvented. Philosophers like Plato and Kant use it to underscore logical or existential necessities—in Plato’s dialogues [1, 2] or Kant’s aesthetic judgments [3, 4]—suggesting that some conclusions are built into the fabric of reason itself. In novels by authors such as Jane Austen [5, 6] and Dickens [7, 8], the word registers both a sense of resigned fate and practical necessity, whether referring to a meeting that must occur or a delay caused by unforeseen circumstances. At the same time, in social and political commentaries by figures like Keynes [9, 10] and Chesterton [11, 12, 13], "unavoidable" reflects the relentless momentum of historical forces and the inexorable nature of societal change. Even in the realm of scientific and logical treatises by Hume [14, 15, 16] and Freud [17], the term is employed to denote outcomes that, under given conditions, simply cannot be escaped—underscoring a pervasive literary theme of determinism across genres and eras.