I analysed and interpreted the philosophical elements in Cankar’s novel poetics, which are still largely unexplored in the literature, by focusing only on those categories that are supported by philosophical logic: the revaluation of values or originality, moral perspectivism, truth, pessimism, suffering, ethics of compassion, empathy, socialism, and hope. When explaining and connecting the highlighted categories, I relied on some of the ideas of philosophers that Cankar knew, mentioned or took into account, i.e. Nietzsche and Plato as well as Schopenhauer and Swift. In this I focused more closely on those elements of Schopenhauer’s philosophy that have not yet been discussed in the context of the author’s poetics, especially the ethics of compassion. While Plato’s idealistic philosophy, according to which the highest idea is the idea of the good and includes all other ideas – for example the ideas of truth, knowledge, beauty, justice and virtue – passes into social ethics in Nina, for in the symbolist aesthetics and the very structure of the novel the most important model is the model of platonic love. Narrative empathy in this novel is most easily connected to Schopenhauer’s ethics of compassion, within which I also explain the category of pessimism and suffering, taking into account the three fundamental levers of human behaviour, i.e. egoism, malice and compassion. It is precisely in the novel Nina that Cankar’s connection to the ethics of compassion is most obvious, which, similar to his other novels, is also connected to his socialist beliefs and Swift’s satire. It is no wonder that this particular novel was strongly rejected by literary critics, since, in addition to the proposal of processing poor children into food for the rich, it also examined the wounds of capitalist society and the individual with other innovations