[lit-ideas] Re: Paralogisms of Heat
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:14:33 +0100 (BST)
--- On Wed, 20/10/10, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> McEvoy:
>
> "They are ... literary."
>
> ---- This seems to beg a question. Recall Geary's
> caveat:
>
It is assumptions you make below that beg the question at least as much.
Adopting and applying a definition of 'philosophical' or 'literary' may always
be deemed question-begging, especially by those preferring an alternative
definition. Arguments in favour or against such a preferred definition may (or
may not) be deemed question-begging also.
> "I don't *know* what I *want* to write
> about. Literature? No, I AM
> Literature and I'm tired of talking about myself."
>
> By modus tollendo tollens, and applying the
> Interpretive Principle of
> Charity, this would yield that Geary's
>
> "Why women make me hot?" should NOT be interpreted as
> 'literature' (or
> 'literary expression', as Geary prefers) but
> "philosophical expression". In
> other words, Geary would apply, _contra_ Popper, the
> paralogism that "Women
> make me hot" IS empirical (and thus literary) while
> the presupposition of
> "WHY women make me hot?" is not -- but just the
> paralogistic expression of
> what he calls a "Philosophical Idea".
For P, whether an expression is "empirical" is not determined by logical form,
or such, but can only be decided by looking at how the expression/statement is
defended or its falsity shown - if the method depends on whether the statement
passes or fails a logically-connected test that can be judged by observation
then the statement is 'empirical'.
> Similarly, setting Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit to
> rhymed couplets does
> not turn it into a "literary expression", in Geary's
> apt distinction.
It might be more "apt" if "literary expression" were confined to "rhymed
couplets". This may be doubted.
Of course to say that an expression is philosophical or literary is not to say
that it is of much, if any, philosophical or literary merit - unless we beg
this question by denying there is anything such as bad philosophy or
literature. But what would be gained by such an assertion?
Donal
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
