I think you successfully interpreted my cryptic comments, which I didn’t realize were cryptic. I was mostly just summarizing the Frankfurt School and similar critiques of positivism, scientism, the administered society, and the Enlightenment.

I shouldn’t have said “a norm of rational behaviour where the means are paramount”. What I meant was the social situation in which it is the means that are susceptible to rationality, rather than the ends. At the personal level, ends may remain paramount, but these tend to be seen as subjective, a matter of taste or whatever. At the social level, political parties campaign on how best to run the economy, not on what kind of economy there should be—and there too, ends may remain paramount (winning elections for the party, profits for owners of capital) but the rationality of basing a society on the profit motive is not questioned, thus the ends here are unexamined.

What I’ve just written might be a bit of a mess, but since your hermeneutic track record is so good, I’ll lazily leave it to you to work it out.

Like the way society was caught in an eye for an eye mutual blindness, until someone invented forgiveness. — unenlightened

That's a fairly small snapshot of a fairly large world. One little 'developing' nation as all "society"; one instance of ritual sacrifice to a vengeful tribal god for the very invention of forgiveness....

That's a fairly small snapshot — Vera Mont

It is. As if we have overcome already, which of course we have not. Other religions are also available.

But I am waving vaguely at a story, not a fact about the world. It is (I claim) a story, rather than a fact, an act by a pioneer, that makes forgiveness a possible move in life. Other stories are available...

I have in mind another thread that might attempt to tell a story of human nature - of individual identity as an incomplete story, and the completion of the story as the purpose of a human life. Maybe.

But I am waving vaguely at a story, not a fact about the world. — unenlightened

I see. It doesn't need to be a true story.

Sorry, I missed this reply somehow. I think it's a bit more complex than that, I mean there is no doubt that being a religious fanatic can be very problematic and even dangerous, we have plenty of examples throughout history that exemplifies this side of religion.

On the other hand, I don't agree about "synthetic" or "fake" experiences. I don't think they are this and would have trouble imagining what a "fake experience" could be. You can say, afterwards, that your judgement about an experience was mistaken, the experience itself wasn't false.

And there's a lot of variety too, you are right that some Christians go overboard when they start speaking in tongues. But there's also plenty of people who have a religious experience that don't do extreme things.

So it's a bit too broad-brush to say that all of this is fake or illusory, as I see it anyway.

History is broken and remade by - fiction? That much is undeniable. And that is worth consideration by any philosopher. — unenlightened

The point is often missed that fiction and truth are not opposites. The point of most fiction, or at least the well written sort, is that it contains much truth.

That is where most truth, or at least the wisdom sort, is found.

And if we can glean deep meaning from the complex tales from the imaginations of great storytellers, surely we can do the same from turning that analysis onto the stories of our own lives and those around us.

This is to say, if we can find deeper truths in fiction, surely we can do the same with non-fiction. Science doesn't have a monopoly on analysis of the world, but the world is as much subject to literary analysis as are the creations of our minds.

This is to say, if we can find deeper truths in fiction, surely we can do the same with non-fiction. — Hanover

How do you gauge the "depth" of a truth?

Science doesn't have a monopoly on analysis of the world, — Hanover

It does on some aspects of the world. You don't get much useful information about space travel from Jules Verne or medical knowledge from R.L. Stevenson.

but the world is as much subject to literary analysis as are the creations of our minds — Hanover

Human psychology and sociology, certainly. The world itself, not so much.

Sure. They signed up for the tax cuts, but stayed for the invasions. Exactly like religion. They converted for the promise of eternal life, but stayed on for the witch-burning. — Vera Mont

Yep, I think that's pretty much the way of it.

The point is often missed that fiction and truth are not opposites. The point of most fiction, or at least the well written sort, is that it contains much truth.

That is where most truth, or at least the wisdom sort, is found. — Hanover

I hear this point made regularly (not least by a friend of mine who is a novelist) and I think it was Gore Vidal who used to say 'we only tell the truth in fiction.' Nevertheless, in my own experience, I can't think of anything I have gained in wisdom from a work of fiction. What I have learned, perhaps, is how words can be used to 'dress up' and develop ideas and evoke a mood or tone. The spectacular fiction of Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov come to mind.

I think the best fiction and poetry can provide a wise feel for or understanding of the human condition or the natural world: we can learn much from it, but what is learned may not be able to be precisely formulated. Nonetheless it can certainly change the way we see things.

Do you have an example from your experience?

:up:

The reduction of truth to facts and information is characteristic of our age, with its “strong fact/value distinction” (quoting the OP).

It’s kind of frightening that the idea of artistic truth seems so alien to people now. Worthy of a separate discussion I’d think.

People nowadays think, scientists are there to instruct them, poets, musicians etc. to entertain them. That the latter have something to teach them; that never occurs to them — Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

It’s kind of frightening that the idea of artistic truth seems so alien to people now. Worthy of a separate discussion I’d think. — Jamal

And an offshoot of theism, which is that there is an intentional creator, is that the non-fiction is as much a creation as the human fiction, allowing both the same sort of analysis. That is, read the tales of your life as you would a novel.

And we should assume in the best written of novels, no word is superfluous, but adds something to the novel. That is, every event matters and you matter., meaning the world could not exist without you.

And none of this requires some leap of faith. It's just a perspective (either culturally instilled or by personal decision) of how you look at things.

And we should assume in the best written of novels, no word is superfluous, but adds something to the novel. — Hanover

How much of the available literature is best-written? Or, indeed, has any value at all?

And an offshoot of theism, which is that there is an intentional creator, is that the non-fiction is as much a creation as the human fiction, allowing both the same sort of analysis. That is, read the tales of your life as you would a novel. — Hanover

Does it follow from this that the creator is created too? Anyway, as you might expect, I’d go a bit further and say that the creator is also a fiction. A meaningful one.

the world could not exist without you — Hanover

Thanks.

And none of this requires some leap of faith. It's just a perspective (either culturally instilled or by personal decision) of how you look at things. — Hanover

I think it’s a fundamental social perspective though. It’s what underlies the idea that alongside science, we can investigate the world with the arts and humanities. The latter explore meaning, including the meaning of that which is investigated by the former.

Does it follow from this that the creator is created too? Anyway, as you might expect, I’d go a bit further and say that the creator is also a fiction. A meaningful one. — Jamal

I think your response to your own question was correct because your question implied a scientific response only to someone so programmed to look for one.

I don't read a lot of fiction nowadays, but Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund and The Glass Bead Game by Hesse, Forbidden Colours and Death in Midsummer by Mishima, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, Dead Souls by Gogol, Madame Bovary by Flaubert, Le Pere Goriot by Balzac came to mind straight away, along with many others impressed me greatly when I read them in my late teens and early twenties. And poetry too of course, Blake, some of the Romantics, the Beats, Wallace Stevens, T S Eliot, just to name a few. I do read more contemporary poetry these days and when I read fiction (rarely) it is often sci-fi.

I think the great novelists are perhaps better phenomenologists than the phenomenologists; they are generally more readable at least, and they could be argued to be better at capturing the nature of human experience than the philosophers are.

I guess what I’m wondering is can you name how a particular book contributed to truth or understanding? If fiction conveys truth then to me it’s ineffable. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever learned anything from an aesthetic experience, no matter how affecting.

Perhaps if I went back and performed textual analysis I could come up with something, but off the top of my head, no. I cannot precisely formulate anything I learned from reading those works.

It's the same with poetry' you can do close reading and textual analysis, but there is always ambiguity in the best work, so poetic meaning cannot be exhaustively explained. I suppose that means there is always an element of ineffability.

I think I agree. I like what you said about novelists as phenomenologists.

How about spiritual truth through scriptures? The non-literal sort. What ‘truths’ do we find in scripture? I can see how parables are like fables. But in relation to Christianity, I can make no use out of sacrifice and resurrection. You?

If I get the time I think I’ll make a new discussion about it. There are a few ways art can be truthful. Making connections, cognitive estrangement that allows us to see things anew, analysis of personal experience (the phenomenology that @Janus mentioned), and so on. But the thing that springs to mind is Adorno’s notion of the non-identical. There is always something about the object (a pair of boots, a gas station, marriage, or the Russian aristocracy) that escapes our concepts (and thus escapes science), and yet is not necessarily always perceptible merely by sitting there looking at it or by contemplating it. This is where art comes in: to give shape to this experience. That’s roughly the idea.

In War and Peace Tolstoy occasionally leaves the story to expound non-fictionally on the causes of historical change, but it’s a common observation that these bits are less true to life and the world than the fictional bulk of the book. It’s interesting to look at how this works.

What I meant was the social situation in which it is the means that are susceptible to rationality, rather than the ends. — Jamal

I think there is a very good reason for this. Ends are only rational as means. This is the problem Aristotle addressed in his ethics. If we take any specific end, and ask why it is wanted, then to answer this question we go to a further end, because we ask for the sake of what. In the process of being comprehended as rational, the end simply becomes the means to a further end. This is why he sought something which would be in a sense self-sufficient, wanted only for the sake of itself, and not for a further end. So he proposed happiness as the end which puts an end to the chain of ends.

Notice though, that this ultimate end is not susceptible to rationality, because it cannot be transformed by rationalization into the means for a further end, and this is what is required to make it rational. But what this means is that no means are really properly susceptible to rationality, because they are only grounded rationally by the end, which only gets grounded as the means to a further end, until we propose an ultimate end, which itself cannot be rationally grounded. So this social situation in which means are rational is a sort of illusion, because they are only rationalized relative to an end, and ends are never really rational except as the means to a further end.

At the personal level, ends may remain paramount, but these tend to be seen as subjective, a matter of taste or whatever. — Jamal

So ends always end up being subjective, and objectivity here is just an illusion. Even if we could come up with something, like Aristotle's "happiness", which we think everyone ought to agree to, someone is bound to disagree and propose something other than happiness, something like flourishing, which is a concept of growth, and insist that growth is better than simple happiness which is more like basic subsistence. And the religious community might insist that there are objective ends, supported by God, but this runs into the Euthyphro problem. Then it becomes rather pointless to define the ends or goods in relation to God, when we need to understand what is good in relation to human existence, as we are human. Therefore the idea of objective ends, or objective goods really does not provide us any useful ethical principles, or even a starting point for moral philosophy.

At the social level, political parties campaign on how best to run the economy, not on what kind of economy there should be—and there too, ends may remain paramount (winning elections for the party, profits for owners of capital) but the rationality of basing a society on the profit motive is not questioned, thus the ends here are unexamined. — Jamal

I think that at the social level the rationality which the society is based in, is generally taken for granted. So for example we take it for granted that democracy is the best form of government. And if asked why you believe this, on would answer "because...". But the "..." tends to just get filled with whatever one likes about democracy, so it's really more of a personal preference than a rational justification.

The problem of course is that as explained above, ends can never really get rationally justified, so we kind of create an illusion for ourselves, delude ourselves into taking for granted that they are already justified. This is the illusion of objective ends. It's not literally self-deception, but we just educate the children to stay away from these sorts of questions, by pretending that we firmly know the answer so there's no need to question. I know democracy is the best because I learned that from the elders who knew it to be the best. The religious way is pretend that God justifies the ends, and train the children not to question this, so when they become adults it's taken for granted. So it's not even a real pretense, just a matter of taking for granted (as known) what is unjustified. The illusion is that since it is the convention it must be already justified. But justification is not necessary for a convention to be accepted.

What ‘truths’ do we find in scripture? I can see how parables are like fables. But in relation to Christianity, I can make no use out of sacrifice and resurrection. You? — Tom Storm

Resurrection, no...not sure exactly what you had in mind with "sacrifice". but some sacrifice I think is intrinsic to human relationship.

But the thing that springs to mind is Adorno’s notion of the non-identical. There is always something about the object (a pair of boots, a gas station, marriage, or the Russian aristocracy) that escapes our concepts (and thus escapes science), and yet is not necessarily always perceptible merely by sitting there looking at it or by contemplating it. This is where art comes in: to give shape to this experience. That’s roughly the idea. — Jamal

:up: I think Roland Barthes tried to get at some of this with his semilology; but it's a long time since reading him, so I might be mistaken.

Thanks. By sacrifice I meant the temporary death of Jesus, the 'blood sacrifice'.

A thread on this would appeal greatly.

Perhaps if I went back and performed textual analysis I could come up with something, but off the top of my head, no. I cannot precisely formulate anything I learned from reading those works. — Janus

You take away whatever you take away; you interpret however you want to interpret; it says whatever you want it to mean; it's as exactly as profound as you want it to be.
Bah! Good fiction doesn't yield to "textual analysis" - it says what it means to say and you either get it or you don't.

Winnie the Pooh taught me that people can be all different and all have different weaknesses and strengths, and yet be good friends to each other and live lovingly together even if they all make mistakes.

The Lord of the Flies taught me that people can also descend into violent barbarity and cruel superstition when their civilising restraints are removed by circumstance.

On the other hand, I don't agree about "synthetic" or "fake" experiences. I don't think they are this and would have trouble imagining what a "fake experience" could be. You can say, afterwards, that your judgement about an experience was mistaken, the experience itself wasn't false. — Manuel

All substance abuse is a fake or synthetic experience in the sense that they don't produce a natural high.
A religious high, is the same imo, if god has no existent.

But there's also plenty of people who have a religious experience that don't do extreme things. — Manuel

In my opinion, for someone to have a REAL religious experience, the supernatural would have to be real.
If atheism is correct (and I think it is,) then a religious experience is induced, in the same way that a heroin high is induced, so I choose to compare that with the concept of 'fake' or 'synthetic,' to contrast it with 'real'. I accept that you could argue, (as you choose to,) that anything physically or mentally experienced is a REAL experience, whether or not it is induced. The religious experience would then be a mistake, as you suggest, regarding it's source and cause. That 'mistake' is made, due to 'fake' news (such as gospel) and 'made up' or a 'synthetic,' 'rousing of the masses,' (to borrow a recent phrase used by @Jamal,) by the emotive preaching spectacle of some evanhellical staged performance.
It's just like the hysterical screaming or hysteria that was demonstrated in the past, at a pop concert by Elvis or the Beatles, except that they admit they were just singing songs and not revealing / interpreting / imparting the TRUE word of god.

By sacrifice I meant the temporary death of Jesus, the 'blood sacrifice'. — Tom Storm

But not the temporary death of god?

The bible/religious scripture, seems to teach many folks, that god has no existent because many of the claims therein, are so flawed, irrational, impossible and contradictory. Is this just mere and more atheist dogma?