/lit/ - Literature

literature is an art.

>>2663373

philosophy is concerned with more than the human. literature reminds us we remain human.

>>2663393

that seems like a pretty serious generalization, though: certainly there can be literature concerned with "going beyond the human," and there can be philosophy exclusively concerned with the human, no?

in any case, what do you mean by "going beyond"? is this to say that philosophy somehow rejects the human, or leaves it behind in its programme? if so--well, would it be relevant to humans at all?

There is no difference between philosophy and literature, no more than there is one between a pig and an animal.
In short : a pig is an animal, and an animal may be a pig.

>>2663414

so philosophy to you is merely a segmented part of the whole (literature). what, then, is the defining characteristic of philosophy as opposed to, say, poetry as another principle area?

Robinson Crusoe -- lit but not phil
Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus -- phil but not lit
the bible, and arguably a lot of authors' works like Dostoyevski, George Orwell -- both

>>2663425

ok, so we can populate categorical lists accordingly, or even build something like a venn diagram to map it out.

but, if examples abound in this new dynamic, what i am really trying to get at is, in the initial construction of lit vs phil, what it means to be either. i understand what you're saying as far as different categories--i want to know how and why we set up the initial categories.

>>2663423
That's the only thing of this "discussion": Which one occupy the higher place in the hierarchy?

Literature = letters. What's the big mystery?

Regarding >>2663423 I feel poetry is intertwined with aesthetics, which means it can be perceived as being intertwined with philosophy, depending on how you view aesthetics.

We explain, describe and communicate all phenomena primarily through language. Literature is fundamentally concerned with an aesthetic communication of ideas and concepts, as its primary purpose is to be read. The primary purpose of Literature’s communication is to be interpreted for pleasure--in that, the qualifier of literature is the level of aesthetics it attains--the greater the level of aesthetics, the greater the work of literature. Literature is, in essence, concerned with Beauty, not Truth.
Philosophy, on the other hand, uses communication not as a tool of seeking aesthetic pleasure, but as a tool that has the potential and capacity to derive higher knowledge. Its primary purpose is to reveal, enlighten, explain. Philosophy uses language to dissect and to arrive at fundamentals; philosophy is qualified by its truth. The deeper the truth it revels, the greater it is. Philosophy is concerned with Truth.

>>2663348
Written philosophy is part of literature. Literature just means "you read it and it isn't a comic book".

What separates philosophy from more "artistic" forms of literature, such as fiction? Philosophy is when a person writes down their reflections and thoughts about the world; fiction when a person draws from his experience and thoughts about the world to create a unique work of art. There's more artifice involved in the latter.

Literature is Art, Philosophy is Science. Any overlapping is only incidental--literature can be untruthful both in the sense of being fictional, and in the sense of not reaching grounds of higher knowledge, and still hold value. Philosophy can be unaesthetic, and still hold value. It so happens that philosophy is sometimes aesthetic and literature is truthful--but only because there is no fixed boundary between the two. They are two ends of a continuum.

>>2663446

>Literature is fundamentally concerned with an aesthetic communication of ideas and concepts
No. You're onto something, but its main purpose isn't to be aesthetically appealing. More so than philosophy, of course.

>as its primary purpose is to be read
So is philosophy..?

>The primary purpose of Literature’s communication is to be interpreted for pleasure--in that, the qualifier of literature is the level of aesthetics it attains--the greater the level of aesthetics, the greater the work of literature. Literature is, in essence, concerned with Beauty, not Truth.

I'm sorry but this is absolutely false. You can say that Literature is perhaps /more/ concerned with the "Beauty" of the writing whereas it is rather unimportant in Philosophy, but that certainly doesn't mean that it is Literature's main purpose to simply have beautiful prose or verse. I think Literature is very much concerned with the truth and the human condition; perhaps not as much as philosophy is, but good Literature should be.

>>2663449

so it's just a matter of stylistics/presentation? structually, it seems like you are arguing that both philosophy and fiction begin with subjective experience (and are therefore both concerned, in part, with said experience), and diverge only when it comes to a question of the "how" of representation...

>>2663453
>there is no fixed boundary between the two
This I agree with.

>>2663470

if there is no fixed boundary, what is it that we "do", obtain, or achieve by having said categories? are they merely arbitrary, or do they contain some validity in their partitioning out of the literary grid?

>>2663466

You're saying that literature that says absolutely nothing about the human condition cannot be 'good literature'?

>>2663474

How should I know? You're the one who's interested in differentiating them and categorizing them.

There's some good points in this thread, though.

Philosophy seems to be more scientific and straightforward, while Literature tries to be entertaining, aesthetically pleasing and have some truth in it at the same time.

>>2663487

Well not completely, obviously. That would be a pretty gross generalization. But I think great or meaningful Literature should definitely try to teach us something or have subtle truths about the human condition, stuff like that.

I have to go now, see ya!

just to get the convo rolling: what do you all think of Wittgenstein's notion that philosophy is something you "do," e.g. as activity rather than category?

>>2663502
onionring agrees

>>2663496

It all depends, I guess, on how you define 'Literature'. One interpretation is Art for Art's sake, in which case a work can be absolutely ridiculous, meaningless and 'doesnt reveal much about the human condition'--I'm thinking of Jabberwocky, for example--and the other is that Literature comes with an embedded component of having a purpose, or message. Thanks for your ideas, Anon.

>>2663502

Interesting idea. But isn't philosophy really a categorization of the 'final product' of the doing?

>>2663515

interesting. how do you think this would alter or extend the definition?

it seems like you are separating philosophy--the product of activity--from the activity. is philosophy merely a category again? and, if so, what is then the name of this intermediary activity?

>>2663519

"Philosophizing"?

Nice that you brought up the nature of the word. Philosophy really only means a 'love of knowledge', so could it be simply an adjective? With literature being the bigger set, and philosophy being the subset of literature that has a love for knowledge...

>>2663521

ok, so what i'm asking: what separates "philosophizing" as an activity from "poeticizing" as an activity? if both respectively end in philosophy and poetry, what operations unique to either justify or cause this division?

>>2663527
true, but certainly literature that is not philosophy--shakespeare, pessoa, woolf, beckett, valery, dostoevsky, etc etc--can touch upon, and deal with, philosophical problems, can they not?

i guess even more explicit examples would be sartre and camus--the first of course rejecting the nobel prize in lit like a motherfucking boss. but as he would consider himself foremost a philosopher, what does this say about the content/subject and form/structure of poetry vs philosophy?

>>2663532

This is just my opinion: I think that 'poeticizing', as opposed to philosophizing, strives to aesthetically 'elevate' an object or idea (A flower, Love) where philosophizing strives to break it down to its fundamental components, as a science would. To me, literature is about taking something and expanding, elevating it while philosophy is about breaking it down, deconstructing (in the non-literary sense) it. I think that philosophy is primarily deductive--it starts from B and gets to A, while literature goes from B to C.

I gotta go too, seeya. Lovely discussion

>>2663554

hmm this is really interesting. do you know the classical division between deliberation and demonstration? or, to modernize the question, between illocutionary and perlocutionary speech acts?

i'm thinking now that there is something about this showing vs telling, doing vs causing that underlies your thesis (which i find attractive--specious, perhaps, but definitely worth pursuing...)

>>2663545

Parting comment, I guess such literature can be said to have a 'philosophical' quality to it. I think it is unfair to sharply draw the line

>>2663532
>what operations unique
whoops

Literature is art, philosophy is a wordgame.

>>2663532
>ok, so what i'm asking: what separates "philosophizing" as an activity from "poeticizing" as an activity?

"Poeticizing" is making the dull fascinating.
"Philosophizing" is making the unimportant important.

>>2663554
>where philosophizing strives to break it down to its fundamental components
That's bullshit and you know it.

>>2663602

WHAT UP DEEP LONG TIME NO SEE!!!! HOWS THE LADS? HAVE THEY LET YOU PITCH YET OR ARE YOU STILL THE PERPETUAL CATCHER?

>>2663613

oh damn shit just got real

Fuck off satan

>>2663613

>philosophy is a wordgame
>philosophy

That's not how you spell dialectic

What are your thoughts on the subject, Deep and Edgy?

>>2663613

can wordgames be art? think joyce, perec--or any member of OuLiPo for that matter.

and, at a more basic level, if all experience is knowable through the medium of language, then is the apprehension/interpretation/appreciation for art merely a matter of systematized, synthesized or otherwise mobilized language-games?

>>2663646
>a tripcunt telling another tripdick to fuck off

>>2663646
:(
still with the acute dysmenorrhea i see...try to stay positive.
anyway,
cheers buddy, missed ya man, remember to take that midol

What are your thoughts on the subject, Satan?

Mate just be thankful I actually making posts in this thread that you get the opportunity to respond to, even though I am not even talking to your nitwit ass, which serves to make your otherwise totally insignificant piss-poor banalities meaningful. Of course this goes for like half the population of /lit/ when I'm on so it's not that much of a big deal i guess

It's a treatise, not a work of entertainment?

>>2663716
but how are the lads? Tell us about the lads!

stop being such an indignant piece of shit

>>2663706

You mean address the idiotic OP? no id rather fuck with deepthroat

>>2663716

>mfw when you are both arguing in the house that rapture built.

either stick to the convo or gtfo.

This is going nowhere

>>2663736
hey rapture, that guy just called you idiotic. surely you ain't gonna let him get away with taht???

>>2663717

can't a treatise be a work of entertainment? i'm thinking here mainly along the lines of Brecht, though you can obviously populate a whole list of examples.

>>2663743
Stop nitpicking, seriously. If you have nothing better to discuss, stop.
Philosophy is, or should be, the foundation of human thought and reasoning; it drives our life, our moral, our actions. Literature simply records those thoughts onto paper, devise a whole plot, or record human actions.

lol, stop nitpicking. the apex of this thread is going to be nitpicking insofar as rapturd is not smart enough, in spite of all his books, to specify the relative conditions under which the terms 'philosophy' or 'literature' are appropriate to use, let alone recognise that this is the important issue to address.

So I guess we could say that rapturd is asking a contextless question, one which could only ever possibly be answered according to the context adopted. Gloves fitting, etc. Pretty easy to answer if all philosophy to you is books with the word 'tits' in them and literature is books with the word 'ass'. Good lucking nailing it down for like several centuries of thinkers and writers, in europe alone, never mind asia. But like maybe we will get lucky and nail it down in one one post if we all put our heads together right.

>>2663801

i'm going to address you once and once only, because i don't think you have a solid grasp of semantics, etc.

what i am asking in making this thread: is the constative statement "philosophy and poetics are distinct" a truthful one? i asked people to explore the topic; clearly i do not expect an answer to such a perennial question, and i can't imagine that you actually expect that i expected to find one. just given a certain expectation of common knowledge, you know just as well as i do how forced that particular critique is--as though asking ANY of the questions on this forum ever amount to a stop-all universe-busting answer. please--you may decline the invitation to explore, but so much the lesser for you and better for those who might be interested in it.

as far as your "contextless" is concerned, i'm not really sure why the context is unclear. aren't we on /lit? is the context any more apparent, or appropriate to ask what the difference between lit and phil is? of course, no question is posed in a vacuum: so enter kant's critique of judgement, foucault, bourdieu, etc. well, thanks for bringing that into play for us to further our discussion.

i am asking to abstractly analyze a constative statement within a shared framework of general experience: e.g. not only in every bookstore ever, but pervasive throughout the academy and acamdemic discourse writ large. what, in the context of a general public experience, do these terms do for us, what do they imply, and how do they operate?

at that semantic level, i could simply ask: what's the context for your critique of my initial statement? it's turtles all the way down, kiddo. i was just asking to stop at one particular level, get out, and explore a little bit--but no, as per usual, /lit fucking sucks.

this is why i never post. i'll see you all in 4 months or so.

>>2663909
>what, in the context of a general public experience, do these terms do for us, what do they imply, and how do they operate?

we're gonna be here for a while if you truly wants to discuss that

>>2663981

that's what i wanted. obviously, there are an infinite sequence of methods (let alone answers), some tried and some still untried, that one can bring to the object. I think it's very easy to fall into D&E's problem, which is merely to apply context-analysis or semantic argument to everything. this is nifty and crafty at best, a series of parlor tricks in the right hands--i'm sure he's read his searle, wittgenstein, austin, goffman, etc etc--that amount to little more than "well you're not SAYING what you think you're saying." yes, language is both the vehicle and hindrance of our communication; yes, semantic webs are an interesting aspect to the use and misuse of our language. and yet, beyond this, there are elements of thought that do in fact remain perennial: even after the so-called linguistic shift, either through wittgenstein/russell in analytic or heidegger/gadamer in continental, i do not find that these questions or methods occlude, despite their claims, problems of ontology, truth, etc.

>>2664083

even if we agree with D&E and say "yes, every statement only acquires its "thick description" in a context; taking it out of one is an impossible hermeneutical fallacy." great; all is well and true. and yet, the "is-ing" of both the context and the communication that is still made possible is what the linguistic camp still cannot fully answer--though they certainly move the conversation to some very interesting and novel areas of thought.

my problem with D&E, as with all the postmodernists (both analytic and continental), is that he has very much found his bible: he strikes me as a man a great faith, though he would no doubt profess agnosticism or atheism or whatever vogue title defines the point-counter-point. it is, ultimately, a kind of nihilism: "it's all about language, man." well great--i guess we can all just stop right here and revel in absolute truth.

D&E: does the implicit constative validity of your method--e.g. it works, it is sound--function outside a context, or is semantics ridden to a specific contextual boundary? already we fall back into ontological notions of truth, validity, and being--let alone more modern notions of authority, use, and power.

>not only in every bookstore ever, but pervasive throughout the academy and academic discourse writ large. what, in the context of a general public experience, do these terms do for us, what do they imply, and how do they operate?
Oh okay, so what you actually meant to ask all this time was what in the context of academic discourse and "general public experience" (i.e. the people who are least fit to tell the difference, for fuck's sake lol) do the terms "literature" and "philosophy" do for us, what do they imply, and how do they operate, as far as we can tell,

WOW, so we've gone from:

>what for you is the constitutive difference--if there is one--between philosophy and literature?
to
>is the constative statement "philosophy and poetics are distinct" a truthful one
to
>what in the context of academic discourse and "general public experience" (i.e. the people who are least fit to tell the difference, for fuck's sake lol) do the terms "literature" and "philosophy" do for us, what do they imply, and how do they operate, as far as we can tell
YEAH, SOUNDS PRETTY CLEAR NOW THAT I READ IT AGAIN, THANKS.

>this is why i never post.
No wonder, you're a complete fucking lunatic. You ask gigantic questions of a bunch of complete strangers with no apparent authority, you change the question like twenty times in the mean-time, and you shit your pants the minute someone points out how scramblebrained the question is.

>>2663909
>is the constative statement "philosophy and poetics are distinct" a truthful one?
>what for you is the constitutive difference--if there is one--between philosophy and literature?
Nice of you to let us know you've changed your fucking tune after I pointed out how hopelessly fucking indistinct your original question was

>i can't imagine that you actually expect that i expected to find one
I am quickly coming to expect very little from some peabrained little dipshit who comes onto a literature board and asks incredibly wide, vague questions of complete strangers, then gets pissy when people point out how fucking vague and wide those questions are

>i'm not really sure why the context is unclear. aren't we on /lit?
Awesome. What is the constitutive difference between philosophy and literature OH SORRY I MEAN is the constative statement "philosophy and poetics are distinct" a truthful one for a bunch of complete strangers on an imageboard? You're going to have to forgive if this is the actual fucking context you were concerned with. I thought you might have been talking about a more significant context than that, my mistake :(

>of course, no question is posed in a vacuum
THEN WHY ARE YOU ASKING THIS FUCKING QUESTION AS IF IT IS

>>2664086
>I think it's very easy to fall into D&E's problem
THERE ISN'T ANY FUCKING PROBLEM.

>-that amount to little more than "well you're not SAYING what you think you're saying."
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

>my problem with D&E, as with all the postmodernists (both analytic and continental), is that he has very much found his bible: he strikes me as a man a great faith, though he would no doubt profess agnosticism or atheism or whatever vogue title defines the point-counter-point. it is, ultimately, a kind of nihilism: "it's all about language, man." well great--i guess we can all just stop right here and revel in absolute truth.
WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT? LIKE, HOW IS "WELL GEE THE QUESTION AS IT'S POSED IS KIND OF VAGUE AND HOPELESS" NIHILISTIC OR ANYTHING LIKE WHAT YOU ARE YAMMERING ON ABOUT?

>D&E: does the implicit constative validity of your method--e.g. it works, it is sound--function outside a context, or is semantics ridden to a specific contextual boundary? already we fall back into ontological notions of truth, validity, and being--let alone more modern notions of authority, use, and power.
Is this guy some sort of bad fucking Caracalla clone. I JUST FUCKING SAID THAT THE CONTEXT IS TOO FUCKING VAGUE, AND IT IS. GET OVER IT, STOP MAKING A BIG FUCKING DEAL OVER IT. YOU ASKED A STUPID, VAGUE FUCKING QUESTION. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT YOU ARE GIBBERING ON ABOUT IN A PATHETIC EFFORT TO CLING ONTO YOUR DIGNITY, WHICH IS RIDICULOUS BECAUSE THIS IS NOT A HUGE FUCKING DEAL ANYWAY

>"yes, every statement only acquires its "thick description" in a context; taking it out of one is an impossible hermeneutical fallacy."
I never said this. You're not commiting a fallacy, you're just going to have a lot of unnecessary useless, unhelpful and vague shit in your argument, which is exactly what has happened in this thread, all because you haven't specified the context and relative criteria.

>the "is-ing" of both the context and the communication that is still made possible is what the linguistic camp still cannot fully answer
Listen to this fucking guy yammer on. He needs a red herring to stop everyone from paying attention while he pulls his idiot foot out of his mouth. That's an entirely different issue you're bringing up. Like, even if it were pertinent to what I'm saying, which is way more simple and straightforward than you're trying desperately to make it seem, it still wouldn't invalidate anything that was said.

Dude, your posts fucking reek. You are throwing names left and fucking right and tossing out little maxims everywhere that aren't doing anything for what you or I am saying, which is really simple and isn't postmodernist or anything. I should call this sort of ridiculous behaviour caracalla syndrome. Next you'll be demanding I cite names and positions for my arguments or you'll refuse to argue against their validity or something lol

i like rapture's posts, they make me feel 'smart", because I "get" them

ITT: a tripfag novel.

go away fake D&E

>>2664356
Why do you keep calling him fake? He's pretty clearly the same person he's always been

Literature (the good kind) is like philosophical entertainment. It's philosophy watered down to a core element then embellished upon in story form.

>>2664266
actually, i studied literature and linguistics for 3 years at university. apart from that i realized that 90% of these literature theorists and lit. philosophers are mostly full of elitist crap, trying as hard a possible to make everything they say as inaccessible as possible to everyone, i really find it hard to see a book as brilliant when it's plain boring. but i guess i'm glad i finished it. I definitely didn't even begin to understand most of it, but I'm still glad I read it.

Literature is a subspecies of philosophy. Everything is philosophy from physics to biology to lit crit to theology.

From a PhD Philosophy student at a world renowned university.

>>2663446

I bet you think that "truth" is something you discover...

correspondence pleb

actually, i studied literature and linguistics for 3 years at the Anal Cannon. The Anal Cannon is loaded when a funnel is placed into an asshole, and the 2nd whore pukes into it. After the ass is filled with puke, a cock then fucks it until the pressure is all built up. After the Asshole has been fucked hard enough, the cock is pulled out and the Anal cannon explodes! To top it all off, ass to mouth occurs, with both ladies licking off the fresh mix of vomit and ass for the ultimate anal dessert!

>>2664466

Most continental philosophers and literary theorists are sophists. This is a brute fact.

>>2664508
>All philosophers are sophists.

ftfy

>>2664517

>All human knowledge can attempt to be is sophistry.

We have no access to noumena at anything other than a conceptual level.

I think they bleed into eachother on a spectrum.

Philosophy is inquiry into nature, reality, or the human condition. Philosophy is about questioning, learning, even if all you learn is the limitations of your own inquiry. It's fundamentally human curiosity to know. On its extreme end, it's logical treatise, dense categorical prose, and formal attempts at systemization.

Literature is fundamentally art, and it's meant to evoke the Sublime. It's pleasurable to read in the same way a (realist) painting is pleasurable to look at. On the extreme end, fully aesthetic literature is just meant to be stirring or beautiful, to take the reader on an enjoyable ride. I think this includes cultural values that are simply demonstrative, meant to be reveled in or enjoyably affirmed, and not reasoned. Plato's allegory of the chariot is primarily philosophical; the Aeneid and Lays of Ancient Rome aren't.

On the extreme end of philosophy would be Aristotle and Kant, but further toward the middle would be Plato and Nietzsche, further still Camus and Dostoevsky, etc., stuff meant to provoke philosophical thinking without using formal logic, or by using it subtly and implicitly. On the extreme end of literature would be pulp, adventure, pastoral stuff and cultural epics that are light on ethics but heavy on morals, parables, etc. Ultimately though I think a far greater ratio of philosophical texts lie on or near their respective extreme than can be said of literature - a much greater ratio of literature is probably commentary, satirical, or speculative in some way, than the ratio of philosophy that takes the method of Camus or Dostoevsky.

It's gonna take me a month to wind down from the spergin' level of this post.

What do you mean by *constitutive* difference?

I think that literature seeks to satisfy certain aesthetic cravings through a written medium, while philosophy concerns itself with advancing our knowledge in different areas through the power of the mind.

Note that these differences don't deny the possibility of doing philosophical literature (e.g.: Thus Spoke Zarathustra) or literary philosophy (e.g.: Borges).

bump. rapture, defend your honor

I assume you mean fiction and philosophy?

Philosophy is an enquiry into the nature of basically everything in reality and existence that can be explored simply with dialectic and rational thinking.

Novels are pretty stories.

>>2664466

>philosophers are mostly full of elitist crap, trying as hard a possible to make everything they say as inaccessible as possible to everyone

I'm not sure how anyone could reach that conclusion. They may be full of crap. Some of them are terrible writers. But claiming they are purposefully making their writing dense is idiotic. If you've ever tried to write a work of philosophy you'll find that it quickly gets very complicated and you start having to adopt some of the rather tedious aspects of philosophy to have any chance of coherence.