Greetings, My German grandmother, who spoke very little, had a Doberman Pincer named Puck. I think she was a great communicator.
Marsha On Jun 4, 2010, at 8:28 AM, Steven Peterson wrote: > Hi Mary, Ian, Matt, Marsha, all, > > >> Could you say that fiction is more honest that non-fiction? At least >> fiction acknowledges itself as such. > > > I agree, Mary. I would say that fiction CAN be more honest than > nonfiction. Someone could write a nonfiction book that is full of > inaccuracies or outright lies. I guess a nonfiction book can also be > competely factual yet completely trivial. > > Fiction can certianly _ring_ true as well as feel contrived (which of > course it always is), but I think something more than "this sounds > like a story that actually could be true" is meant by Martel, Gaiman, > and maybe Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried) when they call fiction > "true." > > For example, in the Midsummer Night's Dream issue of Gaiman's Sandman > Puck says, "This is magnificent--and it's true! It never happened; yet > it is still true. What magic art is this?" > > But what Gaiman mean by "true" here in putting these words in the > mouth of Puck? In what sense is Midsummer's Night Dream "true"? > > Gaiman and Martel aren't philosophers with a spelled out theory of > truth, but if they did have one, I don't think that it would be > coherent unless they distinguished at least two very different ways in > which they use the word "true." There are sentences that are true and > then there is the essence, Truth. > > Personally, to be clear about truth, I like to keep truth as a word > that applies only to sentences and never treat truth as an essence. > Gaiman has his own literary purposes, but for my purposes, I usually > want to make the sort of claim like "Jesus is Truth" sound like > gibberish by asking, "Can a person be true or false? Is Jesus really > equivalent to that property which all true sentences share? Isn't it > more clear to say what if any specific sentences about Jesus are being > affirmed here?" > > I would like to see people stop treating notions such as Truth, > Reason, Human Nature, etc. as essences for the same reason that we > (all of us listed in the address I think) would all like to see > certain appeals to God dropped from our vocabularies--appeals to such > essences impede our attempts to ask what we can become, what we should > do, and why we should do it by offering poor justifications for > current beliefs and putting unneeded constraints on ways we may make > life better. Such terms suggest that there is simply a Way Things > Really Are that we need to conform to and can never be imporved upon. > As Rorty put it, they are attempts to "lend our past practices the > prestige of the eternal." > > I think when Gaiman says about Midsummer's Night Dream that it is > true, he means the sort of truth I denoted with a capital-t--something > like that it is a bit of Ultimate Truth. I think that is what he and > Martel and others are doing in calling fiction true, but I hope not. > What do you think? > > When regarded as an eternal essence (not just the propert that true > sentences share but that entity or whatever that _makes_ sentences > true), Truth becomes an impediment to coming up with ways that we can > make ourselves better in the future. This capital-t Truth is something > that always looks backwards. People find it in the > past such as in a Shakespeare play or the Bible, while small-t truths > look to the future for justification. I would rather try to have a > bunch of good provisionally held truths than claim to have a piece of > Truth itself. > > I think the idea of Truth in Yann Martel and Neil Gaiman's work, > though presented as something new, is part of that old idea that goes > back at least to Plato--the idea that we are hopelessly out of touch > with Reality, the idea that there is something "out there" with which > we need to try to get in touch. James called such a notion, "the > religious impulse." If we want to be thorough-going in our irreligion > I think such Truth-talk about some eternal realm or idyllic past ought > to be dropped from our vocabularies and that we ought to instead > promote provisional truth-talk about our hopes for making a better > future for ourselves and our grandchildren. > > We can find other ways to talk about how good Shakespeare is without > saying that his play is True in the sense of being deeply in touch > with an eternal essence. Midsummer's Night Dream doesn't tell us what > Human Nature really is. Instead, it is part of our human > self-creation. Humanity is not a Nature in this view but rather a > ongoing project that has a lot of promise. Midsummer's Night Dream > isn't good art because it conforms to something old or eternal but > because it makes us into something new, something better than we ever > were before. > > What does all this say about Quality? Is Quality presented by Pirsig > as such an essence that we ought to get better intouch with? > > Best, > Steve > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
