Some people look to fiction for their philosophy or so I have heard this from people on this post. These people aren't serious philosophers. The reason that we have such distinct things as great books of fiction and great books of philosophy should hint you in on the fact that they really have different goals. Reading Kant, Schopenhauer and Plato is not the same as reading Plath, Poe and Conrad. This is because almost all fiction is at its core romantic literature because romance is the core of life. True philosophy is anti-romantic and anti-life, it is more like ordered and rigorous work and it essense is to build whereas the essense of literature is to move or "dance". Think for example of Plath's description of madness and mental affliction as being like a tornado.

This is not to say that there is no movement or music in philosophy but it is to say that it is interested in creating a structure, whereas fiction is interesting in something more flowing. To exemplify this, we may see how philosophy is always caught up in considering big things like the order of society and the theory of existence and very little literature is concerned with this except in passing fliratations. Literature is more so caught up in the dealings of people in the world, in what Hannah Arendt has called their "web of relationships". Of course there is some literature that tackles the big questions as in Doestoevsky, but even with him, the question is, how can a man find his way out of the madness of the world. Philosophy takes things perhaps neccessarily to a more generalized level.

The most ideal structure for a system of philosophy in my mind would be a column which is perhaps why the Romans built everything with columns because they were almost always inevitably looking back to Greek Society and its cutting-edge democratic governments. On the other hand, the ideal literature will form a circle of conversation much like a circus ring. Therefore, the circle must always be shrunk and be built up from its new concentration point. This clearly shows that science is the product of philosophy whereas literature and human relations, is always something else, something unphysical.

It is quite strange to our ears to hear Plato say that Poetry and Philosophy are the same and have the same source. Thus it is practically unconceiveable for us to fathom that poetry and science are the same. They both find their voice from the purely physical, whereas we humans are the only beings that are anti-natural. When we speak in scientific, poetic, or philosophic modes we are always expressing natural things. When we speak literature we are almost always expressing our selves in a way that is anti-scientific and to some degree "other worldly". This is how faith, religion, superstition and the supernatural are always opposed to philosophy, poetics and science. Only in literature are we aliens to what came before us, and only through it can we express what it means to be humans and to do what is most human, to play. Nothing in nature plays, at least without human interaction. Only humans can put on what we can call a show, and that is the true calling of literature as opposed to these other "arts".

It is quite strange to our ears to hear Plato say that Poetry and Philosophy are the same and have the same source. Thus it is practically unconceiveable for us to fathom that poetry and science are the same. They both find their voice from the purely physical, whereas we humans are the only beings that are anti-natural. When we speak in scientific, poetic, or philosophic modes we are always expressing natural things. When we speak literature we are almost always expressing our selves in a way that is anti-scientific and to some degree "other worldly". This is how faith, religion, superstition and the supernatural are always opposed to philosophy, poetics and science. Only in literature are we aliens to what came before us, and only through it can we express what it means to be humans and to do what is most human, to play. Nothing in nature plays, at least without human interaction. Only humans can put on what we can call a show, and that is the true calling of literature as opposed to these other "arts".

I think that Plato was right, because both art and philosophy search for the essence of things, while the world is only a "shadow" of this essence (in Plato). This essence cannot be found in science because the science takes the world as real and does not go beyond this real world in its inquiry. Since the basis of philosophy is reasoning and logic it indeed differs from literature (basis of which is to understand the world in any way possible), logic is not required in literature as far as a "conceivable picture of the world" is presented. But literature is a source of knowlegde equal to philosophy because it (the same as philosophy) dares to questions the "trueness" of our daily experience and searches for the answers of basic philosophical questions: who am I, where am I and where I go, and so on...

Fredx why does it have to be a competition?

I agree that there is a difference between the two.

YOu say fredx:

"we may see how philosophy is always caught up in considering big things like the order of society and the theory of existence and very little literature is concerned with this except in passing fliratations. Literature is more so caught up in the dealings of people in the world, in what Hannah Arendt has called their "web of relationships". Of course there is some literature that tackles the big questions as in Doestoevsky, but even with him, the question is, how can a man find his way out of the madness of the world. Philosophy takes things perhaps neccessarily to a more generalized level. "

What is more important fredx for the inidvidual a theory of social order, the theory of existence, or Doestoevsky tackling the absurd? I mean are they not all necessary? Would you deprive Camus and Sartre their due in encompassing existentialism in fiction by calling it a flirtation? And what about Luigi Pirandello's The Late Great Mattia Pascal and collection of plays especially Six Characters in Search of an Author are you saying they do not consist of, highlight and contain philosophy? I will not deny the merit of great philosophers but I do not believe philosophy has more VALUE than great literature, not for me anyway. Personally if I am looking for enlightenment I naturally turn to art, the philosophers teach us how to think and I try not to think too much these days, Iwould rather just be for a change.


:)

fredx what do you really mean by this:

"we express what it means to be humans and to do what is most human, to play. Nothing in nature plays, at least without human interaction. Only humans can put on what we can call a show, and that is the true calling of literature as opposed to these other "arts"."

To play dear? You mean like hop-scotch? Are trying to say that when Knut Hamsun wrote Hunger, starved bled and sweated travelled from pillar to post it was for the mere 'fun' of it? Are you saying that he was attempting to put on a "show"?

If you are looking for a writer who's style and intent is non-cyclical again try Henry Miller, who by the way would agree with you and then say something like 'Yippie relish in fun, throw your books away and leave all those constipated wind-bags withering away in their attics. What do they know about life and living anyway!' Afterall if one is engaged in life they are not thinking about existence. I mean what would be the point? Look works of fiction are attempts by man to find, show or express meaning in life, in action, sentiment (I know how much you despise that). It gives dignity to the human experience. Now why is there no value in that?

"Nothing in nature plays without human interaction"

Well you will have to elaborate on what you mean cause I just saw this National Geographic special featuring Jane Goodall and those monkeys were having a good ole time at something we would call "play", like dolphins, wild cats....amoeba's don't play I will give you that it just doesn't seem to jive with their single cell experience.

But don't get me wrong fredx I admire your men of letters I just don't think they have anything MORE worthy to offer me than well let's say Dr. Suess;)

Don't mind me you know I'm just fucking with you:D

fredx:
The reason that we have such distinct things as great books of fiction and great books of philosophy should hint you in on the fact that they really have different goals.

Invalidated by observation - Thus Spoke Zarathrustra is a great work of poetry, even more than a work of philosophy. Lucretius' De Rerum Natura another poetic/philosophical work.

Camus' Stranger and Plauge both blur the lines between philosophy and great novels, hell, the Marquis de Sade wrote proto-existentialist porn.

Reading Kant, Schopenhauer and Plato is not the same as reading Plath, Poe and Conrad. This is because almost all fiction is at its core romantic literature because romance is the core of life.

You'd have to prove your premise:

"Romance is the core of life"

before even making such an argument, and then it'd still be flawed, because philosophy is nothing but the exploration of life.

True philosophy is anti-romantic and anti-life, it is more like ordered and rigorous work and it essense is to build whereas the essense of literature is to move or "dance".

Assertion. What is true philosophy and how is it anti-life?

Your argument boils down to:

"It is this way because I said it is this way"

To Xev who wrote: "Invalidated by observation - Thus Spoke Zarathrustra is a great work of poetry, even more than a work of philosophy. Lucretius' De Rerum Natura another poetic/philosophical work."

Ah Xev don't bother I tried to tell him the same about Zarathrustra in the "On Humes" forum...

I wonder what would happen to if we weaned him off philosophy and forced him to read pulp fiction for a month or two, do you think he would kill himself?

;)

Again fredx I am just trying to lighten it up a bit :)

I wonder what would happen to if we weaned him off philosophy and forced him to read pulp fiction for a month or two, do you think he would kill himself?

Scary thought. :D

Actually, I am reading the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath right now and I really like it. Its very interesting because sometimes I read and study and think so much I feel like I am going to go mad. But maybe I am just excited because I am going to become a scientific researcher very soon. As for qualifying my assertions, as you logic heads so love to call providing evidence, I would but I am not getting paid so you will have to make due with the few examples I give. You guys mention all of my favorite authors and almost all of the books you have mentioned I have read, Sartre, Camus (I love this guy, my all time favorite author) and Zarathustra, I got most of the way through that before he put me to sleep as he always does, even books about him put me to sleep, thats the trouble with a man that spends most of his time by himself. Sartre and Camus are fake philosophers, I always got a kick out of it when I heard Arendt say that she really had no use for them. They are fun to read though. Phenomenology rules over Existentialism. You ladies are ridiculously cute, I will answer all of your questions.

To fredx:

Congratualtions on the accomplishment dear one (scientific researcher)!!!!:)


PS: May I be your date when they bestow the nobel prize?

...and no I am not just fucking with you!

Maybe one day I will win it, and no I am not joking, I am very focused.

By the way The Plague I got fascinatingly lost in that book. My favorite all time read, an esoteric masterpiece.

To fredx:

I wish you the best fredx. It is a very worthy goal! In what department in the research?

:)

This post is sort of inronic, in that I currently have two majors, Literature, and Philosophy. I believe that the two are similar. They both are focused in heightened states of living.

Originally posted by DarkEyedBeauty
This post is sort of inronic, in that I currently have two majors, Literature, and Philosophy. I believe that the two are similar. They both are focused in heightened states of living.

Almost exactly what I was going to add myself. Philosophy and literature both take different approaches but they may have the same goals.

The Age of Reason is a wonderful piece of literature - it has sympathetic characters (at a stretch ;) ), a firm context, passages of beautiful writing and a beginning, middle and end, an arc as it were. Yet it is also an outstanding example of existential writing - the context is all that changes between this and, say, Existentialism and Humanism, the ideas, the fundamental basis, that remains.

There is beautifully poetic philosophy and there is philosophical poetry. Everything is gray.

why do you find it neccesary to seperate the two.
I would be willing to call all philosophy poetry to some degree, and in the same way I would call poetry phillosophy. In fact I am one of these annoying people who finds any expression of humanity poetic, and I believe philosophy to be one of the most beautiful expressions of this.

you seem to exempt the X factor from you thinking (I am referring to the source of romance and religion, lust and love the kind of questions that can not be solved with logical thinking). In my thinking I allow for this in order to arrive at a more functional model, I try find a medium between philosophy and romanticism. Simple but functional.

To Benedict: You poor bubbie:D Don't you know Fredx doesn't acknowledge the X factor? Romance, lust and love are you kidding me? All that wishy-washy effeminate sentimental messy emotional illogical nonsense which belongs in a novel to be read by housewives! As opposed to the dry, analytical, refined mental ejaculations produced by impotent wind-bags afraid to leave their attics.

Ahh Freddy you know I love you :D

*singing* Superman! DADADADA

How surreal that someone should think that there is some opposition between philosophy and literature. I absolutely fail to see how one could understand anything about either without having an understanding of both.

Never mind the great names of literature (Goethe would fall off his chair laughing) there is philosophical truth to be discovered in The Beano if you feel like looking. Everybody is to some extent a philosopher, and expresses philosophical ideas, including even authors of literature.

BTW FredX if you feel that philosophy is some dry and dusty study of cold logic that may be just a reflection on how you personally are going about doing it.

To Canute: What is The Beano?:bugeye:

british comic book (talk about a blast from the past! gnash!)