For reference, existentialism is "Life sucks and then you die."

~B~

The basic premise of existentialism is more that the world is generally meaningless or absurd. That is not "life sucks."

Actually, if the world is meaningless or absurd, your existence is meaningless and absurd. Which sucks.

But another person could decide that in a meaningless and uncaring universe a person can give meaning to their life through their actions, and then they can have a great life, which has been made worth living, with that mindset! That's what Camus was about. See: The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus.

 

~B~

Yes, but if the world is meaningless and you are meaningless, your actions are as meaningless as everything else is. Meaninglessness sucks. That means you are worthless and have no hope.

 

But another person could decide that in a meaningless and uncaring universe a person can give meaning to their life through their actions, and then they can have a great life, which has been made worth living, with that mindset! That's what Camus was about. See: The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus.

 

~B~

Yes, but if the world is meaningless and you are meaningless, your actions are as meaningless as everything else is. Meaninglessness sucks. That means you are worthless and have no hope.

 

Don't categorically reject ideas with oversimplified arguments. You just said you like characters who use logic, and oversimplification isn't.

In conclusion, I find it annoying that schools, through these books, are teaching students that their life is worthless and not worth living, pretty much.

~B~

 

Yes, but if the world is meaningless and you are meaningless, your actions are as meaningless as everything else is. Meaninglessness sucks. That means you are worthless and have no hope.

No. No it doesn't. The idea is that the world, as it stands, is meaningless. That does not prevent anyone from making meaning.

 

You can't make meaning out of meaninglessness, Ballom. You can't make something out of something that is opposite of it, without introducing something else. You can't make truth out of lies.

Also, if there is no meaning, there is no truth. Now is that sentence true? Is any of this true?

For the record, I reject that premise outright anyway. It basically goes back to the "only the spiritual world exists and has meaning/universe is a projection" premise, thereby the physical world does not, and you can make meaning out of it because it's your projection. Unfortunately for everyone, the physical world does have relevance - no amount of projection will make you well enough to go to school if you're sick, and if I hit you with a sledgehammer to the back of the head, you will still be very dead. The physical world DOES have meaning - if only the physical operations of your fingers on those keys that allow you to type this.

Don't categorically reject ideas with oversimplified arguments. You just said you like characters who use logic, and oversimplification isn't.

I agree with you that oversimplification is a fallacy. But the truth must be consistent with itself.

 

In conclusion, I find it annoying that schools, through these books, are teaching students that their life is worthless and not worth living, pretty much.

I somehow missed this on my first scan of the blog entry. Just because a work is taught doesn't mean the views reflected in it are endorsed. As part of an education is introducing varying viewpoints, there is no tacit endorsement of themes of a work just because it's taught.

 

~B~

 

A work, sure, but when multiple Works of Great Literature endorse such themes, that counts as an endorsement of negative and depressing points of view in a work.

Also, I would argue that varying viewpoints are not served. If positive and uplifting works were presented alongside such dour and depressing ones, a variety of viewpoints would be served. But there is no variety among these when the only thing to get out of them is this: "Life sucks and then you die."

And then, if the true point of literature is some philosophical point, the only thing that should matter is having the correct viewpoint, as opposed to all the wrong ones, and getting everyone to agree (nobod does). Instead, literature class throws looking for truth and real answers out the window under the "we have to 'expand your horizons with varying perspectives'" excuse. And then they contradict themselves by expecting you to exposit the real truth in your essay. Except for the real truth that the work is wrong, boring, meaningless, and depressing.

The point of works of fiction is to entertain anyway and escape from real life. Anyone who is looking for meaning ought to do themselves a favor and look at real life instead of turning to fiction in order to find truth. (While authors can choose to take themes from real life and put in their fiction, this is not the case here because the authors paint real life as worse than it actually is.)

Interesting points, though, Ballom. Do you actually think this argument is valid, or are you just going along to defend the educational system?

Now I can keep my lies straight.

 

 

Yes, but if the world is meaningless and you are meaningless, your actions are as meaningless as everything else is. Meaninglessness sucks. That means you are worthless and have no hope.

No. No it doesn't. The idea is that the world, as it stands, is meaningless. That does not prevent anyone from making meaning.

 

You can't make meaning out of meaninglessness, Ballom. You can't make something out of something that is opposite of it, without introducing something else. You can't make truth out of lies.

 

Also, if there is no meaning, there is no truth. Now is that sentence true? Is any of this true?

 

For the record, I reject that premise outright anyway. It basically goes back to the "only the spiritual world exists and has meaning/universe is a projection" premise, thereby the physical world does not, and you can make meaning out of it because it's your projection. Unfortunately for everyone, the physical world does have relevance - no amount of projection will make you well enough to go to school if you're sick, and if I hit you with a sledgehammer to the back of the head, you will still be very dead. The physical world DOES have meaning - if only the physical operations of your fingers on those keys that allow you to type this.

 

 

 

In conclusion, I find it annoying that schools, through these books, are teaching students that their life is worthless and not worth living, pretty much.

I somehow missed this on my first scan of the blog entry. Just because a work is taught doesn't mean the views reflected in it are endorsed. As part of an education is introducing varying viewpoints, there is no tacit endorsement of themes of a work just because it's taught.

 

~B~

 

A work, sure, but when multiple Works of Great Literature endorse such themes, that counts as an endorsement of negative and depressing points of view in a work.

 

Also, I would argue that varying viewpoints are not served. If positive and uplifting works were presented alongside such dour and depressing ones, a variety of viewpoints would be served. But there is no variety among these when the only thing to get out of them is this: "Life sucks and then you die."

 

And then, if the true point of literature is some philosophical point, the only thing that should matter is having the correct viewpoint, as opposed to all the wrong ones, and getting everyone to agree (nobody does). Instead, literature class throws looking for truth and real answers out the window under the "we have to 'expand your horizons with varying perspectives'" excuse. And then they contradict themselves by expecting you to exposit the real truth in your essay. Except for the real truth that the work is wrong, boring, meaningless, and depressing.

 

The point of works of fiction is to entertain anyway and escape from real life. Anyone who is looking for meaning ought to do themselves a favor and look at real life instead of turning to fiction in order to find truth. (While authors can choose to take themes from real life and put in their fiction, this is not the case here because the authors paint real life as worse than it actually is.)

 

Interesting points, though, Ballom. Do you actually think this argument is valid, or are you just going along to defend the educational system?

 

~B~

You can't make meaning out of meaninglessness, Ballom. You can't make something out of something that is opposite of it, without introducing something else. You can't make truth out of lies.

 

Also, if there is no meaning, there is no truth. Now is that sentence true? Is any of this true?

 

For the record, I reject that premise outright anyway. It basically goes back to the "only the spiritual world exists and has meaning/universe is a projection" premise, thereby the physical world does not, and you can make meaning out of it because it's your projection. Unfortunately for everyone, the physical world does have relevance - no amount of projection will make you well enough to go to school if you're sick, and if I hit you with a sledgehammer to the back of the head, you will still be very dead. The physical world DOES have meaning - if only the physical operations of your fingers on those keys that allow you to type this.

You're mixing up several different philosophies and treating them as though they were all one thing.  Existentialism is the belief that existence precedes essence, so there is no inherent meaning in anything.  An apple, for instance, exists before it has a purpose; so does human life.  Since these essences do not exist independently, they must be created through human thought and action.  For instance, I give apples the purpose of being eaten at breakfast.  (Absurdism takes basically the same approach; whether they're the same philosophy isn't quite clear.  Camus was hesitant about applying the label "existentialism" to his philosophy, but then again so was Sartre, for a while.)

But then you bring in all this stuff about a "spiritual world," and you've completely lost me.  It sounds like you're making reference to some type of Platonism--perhaps taking "essence" to mean the same thing as "Platonic Form"?  Or maybe that's an oblique reference to something about Christian existentialism?  Existentialism certainly does not require the existence of a world of forms in addition to the physical world (the Theory of Forms).  And I don't get why you bring up the idea of "projecting" to be able to live after an attack by sledgehammer.  Is this a misunderstanding of radical freedom?  The "projecting" involved in Platonism is not at all a conscious decision, but rather a function of the universe.

You don't have to agree with this.  The whole Analytic camp (and particularly logical postivists) hated existentialism.  I've had the pleasure of meeting people (online) who still turn their noses up at any reference to "Continental philosophy"--and some of those people were even PhD's in philosophy!

And I'm sure you could write a stellar essay disagreeing with Camus.  Any decent literature class ought to allow for serious criticism of the works read.  That's pretty much the entire point of a lot of literary theory (e.g., deconstructionism or Marxist critical theory).  You shouldn't, however, reject serious philosophies out of hand.  It's tremendously dismissive to simply ignore a viewpoint with which you don't agree, and it's both rude and quite insulting to do this when you clearly do not understand that viewpoint.

That isn't unique to Continental philosophy or literature.  There are real, serious unsolved problems in the field of logic.  You have your typical examples like the problem of induction, of course.  (What wide-eyed philosophy undergrad hasn't read Hume and suddenly fallen prey to the belief that the Sun may not rise tomorrow?)  Then there are matters like falsificationism vs. verificationism, where scientists often have a different opinion than philosophers.  (I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson recently attracted some bad press for making some comments about philosophy that are rather reminiscent of your opinions.)

(Incidentally, this is something that has bothered me for a long time about the way that we talk about "logic" on BZP.  There's this sort of cartoonishly simple view of logic as being basically a knowledge of informal fallacies and not a lot else.  There's no appreciation for the actual complexity of the field of logic, so a lot of people end up thinking that just "thinking things through" is equivalent to "being a logician" or whatever.  You might say that it's enjoyable to read about characters who use logic, but when the author starts peppering their book with predicate calculus and lengthy proofs, that enjoyment would almost surely evaporate.  I totally admit to having that perspective not too long ago, and I'll be the first to kick myself for that--but BZP seems to propagate that view a lot.  I think that DV's made some similar criticisms of BZP, particularly S&T, although I can't recall when I saw him saying so.)

Along the same lines, I am positive that your literature curriculum is not solely comprised of existentialist works.  For instance, nothing written before the life of Soren Kierkegaard can be reasonably categorized as existentialist.  Heart of Darkness is relatively pessimistic, but Conrad isn't generally grouped as an existentialist.  (And given that the novel's subject is the brutal colonization of the Congo, it has good reason to be less than cheery.)  It uses a fair amount of dreamlike scenes that convey a sense of confusion--but not to the point that Conrad is trying to undermine his reader's belief in logic.

There are surely happy endings in your literature class's assigned readings.  The most obvious example would have to be any of Shakespeare's comedies.  Or Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I don't think "paints life as worse than it is" (unless your life has been really fantastic).

The point of works of fiction is to entertain anyway and escape from real life. Anyone who is looking for meaning ought to do themselves a favor and look at real life instead of turning to fiction in order to find truth. (While authors can choose to take themes from real life and put in their fiction, this is not the case here because the authors paint real life as worse than it actually is.)

For what it's worth, I completely disagree when you say that the purpose of fiction is to "entertain" and "escape from real life."  That may be all you look for in fiction, but that's not the end-all-be-all.  Fiction is a spectacular way to learn about other's experiences; it's a means of practicing empathy.  (I think David Foster Wallace said something to this effect, and that's now one of those quotes people like to throw around.)  Beyond that, truths about philosophy and, well, "real life" can absolutely be communicated through literature.  Fiction allows one to present realistic scenarios that encapsulate a particular outlook or theme.

Just because not everyone believes the same thing doesn't mean that literature is futile.  If that were the case, then logic would be pointless, too!  As I said before, there are still major debates (and resulting discoveries) taking place in the field of logic.  It would be tremendously imprudent to completely ignore these.

--------------

Incidentally, I don't get what you said about catharsis at all, and I'm saying that out of sincere confusion.  Whatever you meant, it's probably a good idea to be careful applying Aristotle to the entire body of literature that you read.

You seem to be sidetracked from the fact that I was only explaining what existentialism as a philosophy is overall, regardless of what I myself believe. You're free to agree or disagree with tenets of existential philosophy, but you can't debate with me what existentialism is, which it looks like you're trying to do.

 

You are absolutely correct. My bad.

What I was trying to argue there was that your definition of existential philosophy is essentially the same as mine, but the fact that I disagree with that premise because I think it is negative does not render your statement incorrect. Thanks. This kind of stuff helps.

I disagree with a lot of this post. But the section I'm going to touch on is your claim that the point of fiction is to entertain and escape from reality only. This is patently false. My major is far from literature, and I still cringe reading that. Countless written works are decidedly not for entertainment. They can exist to reflect viewpoints of the author, to give a lens to look at aspects of life, as polemics, and for a million other reasons. Do you think Lord of the Flies exists to escape from real life?

 

~B~

No.

My point is that fictional works should be for entertainment, not to depress people, not necessarily that it is that way. Although that's probably my preference, not a logical argument. 

(It is not an opposition to works having themes - just that they should have some cheerful elements to it. Otherwise why bother?)

The logical argument in that blog entry is that such depressing works are pointless and logically inconsistent with real life. Not that extenstialism is something that it isn't or that all works should be mindless happiness.

Also, to add to what was said: lampshading and foreshadowing are not the same thing even remotely.

Now I get to the philosophy argument.

You're mixing up several different philosophies and treating them as though they were all one thing.

Let us be clear - I know little about philosophy, except that it can lead to logically fallacious thought. I have a rudimentary understanding.

I also believe that the truth is one whole thing, that it is evident and plainly obvious to all, we just don't want to accept it because of the short-run pain that it causes. This tenet is offensive to most philosophers in my understanding. However, best to be up-front about it so you don't get confused.

As such, in understanding whether something is true or false, what matters is not my ability to distinguish them but whether they are indeed true. And yes I'm probably mixing up the philosophies and claiming that they are the same thing - false.

So yes, indeed, you are correct. (No sarcasm intended!)

Existentialism is the belief that existence precedes essence, so there is noinherent meaning in anything.  An apple, for instance, exists before it has a purpose; so does human life.  Since these essences do not exist independently, they must be created through human thought and action.  For instance, I give apples the purpose of being eaten at breakfast.  (Absurdism takes basically the same approach; whether they're the same philosophy isn't quite clear.  Camus was hesitant about applying the label "existentialism" to his philosophy, but then again so was Sartre, for a while.)

And once again, I can't argue with you on this. If this philosophy in fact teaches this, you are correct.

But then you bring in all this stuff about a "spiritual world," and you've completely lost me.  It sounds like you're making reference to some type of Platonism--perhaps taking "essence" to mean the same thing as "Platonic Form"?  Or maybe that's an oblique reference to something about Christian existentialism?  Existentialism certainly does not require the existence of a world of forms in addition to the physical world (the Theory of Forms).  And I don't get why you bring up the idea of "projecting" to be able to live after an attack by sledgehammer.  Is this a misunderstanding of radical freedom?  The "projecting" involved in Platonism is not at all a conscious decision, but rather a function of the universe.

There are two points I was trying to make there.
1) That existentialism would involve invalidating the physical world's existence (it has no meaning, only the spiritual world does), and

2) The physical world DOES have relevance, it does exist, thereby existentialism is false. (In this case, I believe Platonism/Theory of Forms and Christian Existentialism to be false, if that helps.)

Interestingly, your seeming to equate the "only spiritual world" with an "oblique ref to Christian existentialism" would appear to support that case, oddly enough.

You don't have to agree with this.  The whole Analytic camp (and particularly logical postivists) hated existentialism.  I've had the pleasure of meeting people (online) who still turn their noses up at any reference to "Continental philosophy"--and some of those people were even PhD's in philosophy!

To be fair, I know a "logical positivist" who is affecting my thinking indeed. But I don't always agree with him because he seems to not understand the pain that is associated with why people avoid truth.

Speaking of which, I take it you've done some philosophy studies of your own?
 

You shouldn't, however, reject serious philosophies out of hand.  It's tremendously dismissive to simply ignore a viewpoint with which you don't agree, and it's both rude and quite insulting to do this when you clearly do not understand that viewpoint.

This is true. Okay, fair point. It appears that I have posted this blog in a bit of error lol. The thing was, I thought I understood said viewpoint (trusted my lit teacher, much to my determent, it seems). 
 

That isn't unique to Continental philosophy or literature.  There are real, serious unsolved problems in the field of logic.  You have your typical examples like the problem of induction, of course.  (What wide-eyed philosophy undergrad hasn't read Hume and suddenly fallen prey to the belief that the Sun may not rise tomorrow?)  Then there are matters like falsificationism vs. verificationism, where scientists often have a different opinion than philosophers.  (I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson recently attracted some bad press for making some comments about philosophy that are rather reminiscent of your opinions.)
 
(Incidentally, this is something that has bothered me for a long time about the way that we talk about "logic" on BZP.  There's this sort of cartoonishly simple view of logic as being basically a knowledge of informal fallacies and not a lot else.  There's no appreciation for the actual complexity of the field of logic, so a lot of people end up thinking that just "thinking things through" is equivalent to "being a logician" or whatever.  You might say that it's enjoyable to read about characters who use logic, but when the author starts peppering their book with predicate calculus and lengthy proofs, that enjoyment would almost surely evaporate.  I totally admit to having that perspective not too long ago, and I'll be the first to kick myself for that--but BZP seems to propagate that view a lot.  I think that DV's made some similar criticisms of BZP, particularly S&T, although I can't recall when I saw him saying so.)

This particular subject fascinates me greatly. When I mean logic, I mean the "the principles applicable to any field of study", as per the dictionary. In this case, I'm applying these principles to literature.

However, I'm genuinely interested to know how I could be misusing that word, and about the "serious unsolved problems in the field of logic". But both times when this has been brought up, nobody has bothered to explain to me why I was wrong. This kinda leaves me thinking that you think that this is so obvious it doesn't need stated and I'm some sort of dooficus for not getting it.

Unfortunately, I believe that logic is the "study of everything that is" which is basically the same as saying "the study of which things are true and which ones are not". I kinda feel that this is so obvious that it doesn't need stated either, but that doesn't mean I'm right. Even if I am right, I would like to know why so I can mount up the proper response in my next debate with DeeVee.

Anyway, by characters who use logic, I mean characters who do stuff for reasons that make sense. To be clear, shooting someone just because the sun is in your eyes (to ref the Stranger) doesn't make any sense. They don't lengthy proofs to make sense, it just has to fit in the willing suspension of disbelief. 
 
And for the most part, people do want to be happier. Thus characters who don't and act stupidly illogical because they don't...annoy me. There could be an emotional reason for that, but wouldn't that be obvious? The solution is to deal with the logical fallacy that is causing the negative emotion, not run around doing a bunch of stupid stuff that doesn't make sense. (Although I sometimes do that myself lol - the key is that I want the characters to overcome that, not give up hope and die.)

* * *
Also, I wasn't saying that all works of literature are existentialist - I said that MOST of them are negative. I also have not read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, so yeah.
 

For what it's worth, I completely disagree when you say that the purpose of fiction is to "entertain" and "escape from real life."  That may be all you look for in fiction, but that's not the end-all-be-all.  Fiction is a spectacular way to learn about other's experiences; it's a means of practicing empathy.  (I think David Foster Wallace said something to this effect, and that's now one of those quotes people like to throw around.)  Beyond that, truths about philosophy and, well, "real life" can absolutely be communicated through literature.  Fiction allows one to present realistic scenarios that encapsulate a particular outlook or theme.

Truth, this be as well.

Again, not arguing against that as against "life is hopeless" messages, though.
 

Just because not everyone believes the same thing doesn't mean that literature is futile.  If that were the case, then logic would be pointless, too!  As I said before, there are still major debates (and resulting discoveries) taking place in the field of logic.  It would be tremendously imprudent to completely ignore these.

I'm not sure why this point is relevant to the preceding statements. I will cautiously agree with it - after all, if the truth were truly something we could all accept, we wouldn't study it to try to figure it out.

Anyway, it appears that I may need to look up these "debates in the field of logic", as you say. While I may simply laugh at them in the end, it would behoove me to be better informed.

I still don't like depressing works of literature, through. No evil philosopher can take that preference away from me.

Also, to add to what was said: lampshading and foreshadowing are not the same thing even remotely.

Hi, DV. Figured you'd show up. Also: fair point. 

Sorry for the late reply.
 

There are two points I was trying to make there.
1) That existentialism would involve invalidating the physical world's existence (it has no meaning, only the spiritual world does), and

2) The physical world DOES have relevance, it does exist, thereby existentialism is false. (In this case, I believe Platonism/Theory of Forms and Christian Existentialism to be false, if that helps.)

Okay, but existentialism does not entail a belief in a "spiritual world." Absolutely no existentialist believes that the physical world does not exist. Rather, they believe that it exists before it has "essence." Further, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about when you mention a "spiritual world." (The closest thing I can think of would be the world of forms, but Platonism is a metaphysical position and therefore completely unrelated to existentialism.)
 

To be fair, I know a "logical positivist" who is affecting my thinking indeed. But I don't always agree with him because he seems to not understand the pain that is associated with why people avoid truth.

Speaking of which, I take it you've done some philosophy studies of your own?

I take it you're referring to bonesiii here? I've never seen him refer to himself as a logical positivist. (To be perfectly honest, I've never seen him refer to belonging to any particular school of thought, though, so he could be a logical positivist. It's probably worth noting that logical positivism is somewhat rare currently.) You do realize that logical positivism is a very specific school of thought, right?

Also, to be clear: I do not hold a degree in philosophy. If you'd like, I could probably put you into contact with some people who do.
 

However, I'm genuinely interested to know how I could be misusing that word, and about the "serious unsolved problems in the field of logic". But both times when this has been brought up, nobody has bothered to explain to me why I was wrong. This kinda leaves me thinking that you think that this is so obvious it doesn't need stated and I'm some sort of dooficus for not getting it.

Unfortunately, I believe that logic is the "study of everything that is" which is basically the same as saying "the study of which things are true and which ones are not". I kinda feel that this is so obvious that it doesn't need stated either, but that doesn't mean I'm right. Even if I am right, I would like to know why so I can mount up the proper response in my next debate with DeeVee.

What I'm getting at is the fact that logic is an actual field of philosophy. It takes on a variety of forms, but all of them are extremely rigorous and scientific. On BZP in general, people seem to think that in order to "know logic" you just have to know a list of informal logical fallacies and know how to spot them. This is actually a pretty common attitude on the Internet overall.  I've seen websites that have pages on "logic" that are nothing more than a collection of fallacies.  (They make my stomach churn.)

If you'd actually like to learn about the still-unsolved problems that logicians are struggling with, I'd recommend asking around on websites with actual logicians. I think Reddit has an "ask philosophers" forum that should have professional philosophers to give you a decent overview. A decent problem to start of with would be the problem of induction (which I referred to in my earlier post).

It's sort of a shame that DV didn't go into any detail about his criticisms of "logic" on BZP (if those are indeed his!). I'd love to know whether we're talking about the same thing.
 

Anyway, by characters who use logic, I mean characters who do stuff for reasons that make sense. To be clear, shooting someone just because the sun is in your eyes (to ref the Stranger) doesn't make any sense. They don't lengthy proofs to make sense, it just has to fit in the willing suspension of disbelief.

You're not supposed to agree with Meursault's decision to shoot the Arab, for the record. Throughout The Stranger, Muersault is alienated from society and from his own emotions, only capable of expressing vague physical discomfort. The shooting of the Arab because of the heat of the sun is simply the most extreme example of this alienation. This also gets into that whole "literature-as-exercise-in-empathy" thing: even though you realize Meursault's made an awful mistake, you should to see how he did so.
 

And for the most part, people do want to be happier. Thus characters who don't and act stupidly illogical because they don't...annoy me. There could be an emotional reason for that, but wouldn't that be obvious? The solution is to deal with the logical fallacy that is causing the negative emotion, not run around doing a bunch of stupid stuff that doesn't make sense. (Although I sometimes do that myself lol - the key is that I want the characters to overcome that, not give up hope and die.)

I'm really not sure what you mean by a lot of this. Literature does require a fair amount of interpretive thought (so "emotional reasons" for characters' behaviors aren't plainly clear, but they do exist). And anyway, a big part of "literature-as-an-exercise-in-empathy" involves confronting the characters who think differently than you do. If you just get irritated whenever someone acts "stupidly illogical" and can't empathize with them, then you are really missing out on something.

Incidentally, I've never heard anyone say that logical fallacies are the cause of negative emotions. I guess you'd have to ask a psychologist about this, though.

But to talk about literature, Meursault doesn't give up hope at the end of The Stranger. The final words of narration are tremendously, powerfully hopeful: Meursault expresses the desire to be greeted with "cries of hate." It's a strange thing to hope for, but that's precisely the point of the novel.
 

I'm not sure why this point is relevant to the preceding statements. I will cautiously agree with it - after all, if the truth were truly something we could all accept, we wouldn't study it to try to figure it out.

I probably should have been more clear here. I was referring to your statement that "And then, if the true point of literature is some philosophical point, the only thing that should matter is having the correct viewpoint, as opposed to all the wrong ones, and getting everyone to agree (nobod does). Instead, literature class throws looking for truth and real answers out the window under the "we have to 'expand your horizons with varying perspectives'" excuse." It seems like you were trying to say that, "Since literature class doesn't make everyone agree on everything, it does not impart knowledge of the truth." I was trying to say that if you believe that, then you must also believe that logic does not impart knowledge of the truth, because logic also doesn't make everyone agree on everything.
 

Anyway, it appears that I may need to look up these "debates in the field of logic", as you say. While I may simply laugh at them in the end, it would behoove me to be better informed.

It would certainly be a good idea to get better informed about the field of logic. But please, please, please, please do not be so arrogant as to "laugh at [the debates in the field]." Realize that there are people who have given their entire lives to the serious study of logic, performing countless hours of research in the field, and they don't necessarily agree with each other. Bear in mind that you probably do not know better than them.

No problem - we all have lives. I appreciate you taking the time out to correct my brainlessness in a lot of ways. (Although I still think I'm right about a lot of the stuff I said, though. )
 

Okay, but existentialism does not entail a belief in a "spiritual world." Absolutely no existentialist believes that the physical world does not exist. Rather, they believe that it exists before it has "essence." Further, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about when you mention a "spiritual world." (The closest thing I can think of would be the world of forms, but Platonism is a metaphysical position and therefore completely unrelated to existentialism.)

So you're saying that existentialism says the world exists before it has meaning, which would be the opposite of what I was saying. It implies that people have absolute control over any metaphysical meaning, which would point to a different lie.
 

I take it you're referring to bonesiii here? I've never seen him refer to himself as a logical positivist. (To be perfectly honest, I've never seen him refer to belonging to any particular school of thought, though, so he could be a logical positivist. It's probably worth noting that logical positivism is somewhat rare currently.) You do realize that logical positivism is a very specific school of thought, right?

Looked up logical positivism on Google:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/346336/logical-positivism

Let me verify this for you: bonesiii is not a logical positivist. And I don't agree with that philosophy one iota either - I use personal experience as a barometer for things being true on a regular basis. I'd argue that philosophy is actually probably more common that you think, though - evolutionists use all the time. (Not saying that they are wrong to use it or to start a debate on that...but yeah.) 

What I thought the words meant was what they deconstruct as "study of what is true is positive" or "truth leads to positivity". That I can quote bones as agreeing with.

That philosophy is also fairly common - you'll find it in self-help books readily enough.

Me, I'm very cautious to accept said premise, because my personal experience tells me that accepting the truth is an emotionally painful process more often than not. Failure to do so will result in more pain, though, so there is little choice - and enduring the "truth-accepting" pain makes me more effective at whatever I happen to be doing, which is pleasurable in the end.
 

What I'm getting at is the fact that logic is an actual field of philosophy.

This is actually something that is highly controversial. There are many people who believe that the entire field of philosophy is worthless - as such, it is entirely possible that the truth may be found outside of philosophy. Since logic is merely the study of truth, binding it in the narrow scope of philosophy is something I believe to be unwise. 

Logic is not a subset of philosophy; philosophy is a subset of logic.

It takes on a variety of forms, but all of them are extremely rigorous and scientific. On BZP in general, people seem to think that in order to "know logic" you just have to know a list of informal logical fallacies and know how to spot them. This is actually a pretty common attitude on the Internet overall.  I've seen websites that have pages on "logic" that are nothing more than a collection of fallacies.  (They make my stomach churn.)

I do agree with this - logic is more than a set of fallacies.
 
No common set of exposed untruths would ever be exhaustive anyway. The capacity for the human mind to make up lies and believe them cannot be summed in any amount of words.  

It's sort of a shame that DV didn't go into any detail about his criticisms of "logic" on BZP (if those are indeed his!). I'd love to know whether we're talking about the same thing.

Thanks for clarifying, though. It means a lot. I searched DV's blog for relevant terms and none came up. It seems that you two mean the same thing though when you talk. 

You're not supposed to agree with Meursault's decision to shoot the Arab, for the record. Throughout The Stranger, Muersault is alienated from society and from his own emotions, only capable of expressing vague physical discomfort. The shooting of the Arab because of the heat of the sun is simply the most extreme example of this alienation. This also gets into that whole "literature-as-exercise-in-empathy" thing: even though you realize Meursault's made an awful mistake, you should to see how he did so.

I'm really not sure what you mean by a lot of this. Literature does require a fair amount of interpretive thought (so "emotional reasons" for characters' behaviors aren't plainly clear, but they do exist). And anyway, a big part of "literature-as-an-exercise-in-empathy" involves confronting the characters who think differently than you do. If you just get irritated whenever someone acts "stupidly illogical" and can't empathize with them, then you are really missing out on something.

Incidentally, I've never heard anyone say that logical fallacies are the cause of negative emotions. I guess you'd have to ask a psychologist about this, though.

But to talk about literature, Meursault doesn't give up hope at the end of The Stranger. The final words of narration are tremendously, powerfully hopeful: Meursault expresses the desire to be greeted with "cries of hate." It's a strange thing to hope for, but that's precisely the point of the novel.

I don't empathize with people who make stupid mistakes that any sane person would reasonably avoid. I'm the last person in the world to claim that I'm brilliant, but even I, literal queen of momentary stupidity, know that shooting people for no reason is a bad idea.
 
Now I could get behind the idea that Meusualt is sad cause his mom died, but he goes into paragraphs about why he doesn't care much. If he truly didn't care, he would at least care about himself, right? If he doesn't care about himself, does he care about others? If he doesn't care about anything at all, why does he not care? And no, the sun being in his eyes is not a real answer. Why Meusalt doesn't care - and correspondingly wants to be destroyed ("cries of hate") - is for a reason that the author does not address, and frankly implies that none exists at all. If someone is emotionally disconnected, there is a reason for that disconnect that needs to be addressed. It is not a normal fact of life - the latter is an illusion that would blow itself with a few seconds of thought.
 
Wanting to be destroyed (hate is a commitment to the complete and utter destruction of a something) is not hope. It is giving up in the worst possible way. 
 
But again, we are getting back into a debate over something that you really weren't taking issue with.  
 
As for the comment on logical fallacies leading to negative emotions, I have no qualm about telling you that is absolutely true. Thinking "Oh this will work" on a programming assignment, only to find that it doesn't ticks me off. It might be only a mild irritation now, but it still happens. Same for logical errors in writing stories - those can be even more painful because you have to cut a character or a scene that you really liked. (Testimonials from fellow programmers and writers will tell you that I'm not alone.)
 
I've have people come around with logical fallacies over and over again - those cause negative emotions like irritation (you even mentioned that the "logic is just fallacies" misconception making your stomach churn, yes?). People say stuff that remind me of fallacies in my own thinking, and that bothers me every time. These days I'm better at letting such negative energy slide off, but pretending it doesn't exist would be a disservice. 
 
Negativity and lies walk hand in hand. Think about feminists complaining about lies being told about women in the media, about gay men complaining they are being mistreated because of lies, and so on. Do you expect them to be happy about the lies being told about them? I guarantee it - nearly every negative emotion has some sort of lie as a cause, whether you believing one, or someone else believing one. 
 
There's also personal taste, mind - but what I find is that if I don't like something, I shrug and move on. It's the lie that "this should appeal to me and it doesn't" that actually does the biting. 

I probably should have been more clear here. I was referring to your statement that "And then, if the true point of literature is some philosophical point, the only thing that should matter is having the correct viewpoint, as opposed to all the wrong ones, and getting everyone to agree (nobod does). Instead, literature class throws looking for truth and real answers out the window under the "we have to 'expand your horizons with varying perspectives'" excuse." It seems like you were trying to say that, "Since literature class doesn't make everyone agree on everything, it does not impart knowledge of the truth." I was trying to say that if you believe that, then you must also believe that logic does not impart knowledge of the truth, because logic also doesn't make everyone agree on everything.

I don't recall saying anything about agreement at all. Getting everyone to agree on the truth isn't the point of logic. The point of logic is to point to the truth. It's up to you (and your personal tastes) to accept its conclusions, or reject them.  

It would certainly be a good idea to get better informed about the field of logic. But please, please, please, please do not be so arrogant as to "laugh at [the debates in the field]." Realize that there are people who have given their entire lives to the serious study of logic, performing countless hours of research in the field, and they don't necessarily agree with each other. Bear in mind that you probably do not know better than them.

This is entirely possible, yes, and presumption is not wise.

But once again I feel that I need to point out that logic extends beyond philosophy. There is programming logic, there is car mechanic logic, there is story writing logic - all of these things exist, and all are vital. Don't put logic in a box and say that I can't use it. Especially when people use the words and qualifications of philosophy and psychology to hide from the truth as much as to reveal it. In the end the truth is self-evident and inescapable - that's part of why we're so negative all the time lol. If only the philosophers had it, only the philosophers would be hated.

Anyway, that's all for now.

late to the party but i just wanted to add my own thoughts, even though most stuff has been covered by now

 

 

Yes, but if the world is meaningless and you are meaningless, your actions are as meaningless as everything else is. Meaninglessness sucks. That means you are worthless and have no hope.

No. No it doesn't. The idea is that the world, as it stands, is meaningless. That does not prevent anyone from making meaning.

 

You can't make meaning out of meaninglessness, Ballom. You can't make something out of something that is opposite of it, without introducing something else. You can't make truth out of lies.

Also, if there is no meaning, there is no truth. Now is that sentence true? Is any of this true?

 

Okay, but existentialism does not entail a belief in a "spiritual world." Absolutely no existentialist believes that the physical world does not exist. Rather, they believe that it exists before it has "essence." Further, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about when you mention a "spiritual world." (The closest thing I can think of would be the world of forms, but Platonism is a metaphysical position and therefore completely unrelated to existentialism.)

So you're saying that existentialism says the world exists before it has meaning, which would be the opposite of what I was saying. It implies that people have absolute control over any metaphysical meaning, which would point to a different lie.

letters are shapes to which we assign meaning

words are collections of those shapes to which we assign meaning

sentences are collections of those collections of shapes to which we assign meaning

and yet none of these things are inherently meaningful

tl;dr yes humans can and do assign meaning to the meaningless, there is nothing fallacious in the idea that we create meaning out of what is meaningless, and unless i'm misunderstanding the points you're making here i'm pretty sure that's what you were saying? in which case the very form in which you present your argument goes against that idea

just a thought, and apologies if i've misunderstood your meaning

- Indigo Individual

Sorry for late-ish reply. I've been dealing with other stuff. 

letters are shapes to which we assign meaning

words are collections of those shapes to which we assign meaning

sentences are collections of those collections of shapes to which we assign meaning

and yet none of these things are inherently meaningful

 

tl;dr yes humans can and do assign meaning to the meaningless, there is nothing fallacious in the idea that we create meaning out of what is meaningless, and unless i'm misunderstanding the points you're making here i'm pretty sure that's what you were saying? in which case the very form in which you present your argument goes against that idea

 

just a thought, and apologies if i've misunderstood your meaning

 

- Indigo Individual

Yes, but words, sounds, body language, and other things (lego bricks? images?) are a communication tool for mankind. 

The entire world is not a communication tool for humanity. Even if it was, your statement doesn't prove that the world doesn't have meaning apart from what we assign it. A cliff has inherent meaning. It means danger and death if I jump off it, it is an obstacle to passage of those beings below, since it is difficult to climb, and can provide a beautiful view. This meaning is not unique to me. Even if in your mind you assign a different meaning to that particular rock formation, me pushing you off it will result in your death anyway.

I could assign a different meaning to the word "cliff" but the rock formation and its hazards will still exist, even if I no longer use the word "cliff" to refer to it. Therefore my communication method does not undermine my logic.   

We do make up things and assign meaning to them. We communicate using these things. But we don't assign meaning to things that aren't communication tools or made up stuff.  

Sorry for late-ish reply. I've been dealing with other stuff. 

letters are shapes to which we assign meaning

words are collections of those shapes to which we assign meaning

sentences are collections of those collections of shapes to which we assign meaning

and yet none of these things are inherently meaningful

 

tl;dr yes humans can and do assign meaning to the meaningless, there is nothing fallacious in the idea that we create meaning out of what is meaningless, and unless i'm misunderstanding the points you're making here i'm pretty sure that's what you were saying? in which case the very form in which you present your argument goes against that idea

 

just a thought, and apologies if i've misunderstood your meaning

 

- Indigo Individual

Yes, but words, sounds, body language, and other things (lego bricks? images?) are a communication tool for mankind. 

 

The entire world is not a communication tool for humanity. Even if it was, your statement doesn't prove that the world doesn't have meaning apart from what we assign it. A cliff has inherent meaning. It means danger and death if I jump off it, it is an obstacle to passage of those beings below, since it is difficult to climb, and can provide a beautiful view. This meaning is not unique to me. Even if in your mind you assign a different meaning to that particular rock formation, me pushing you off it will result in your death anyway.

 

I could assign a different meaning to the word "cliff" but the rock formation and its hazards will still exist, even if I no longer use the word "cliff" to refer to it. Therefore my communication method does not undermine my logic.   

 

We do make up things and assign meaning to them. We communicate using these things. But we don't assign meaning to things that aren't communication tools or made up stuff.  

yes but up until you decide to go and push me off that cliff it's a cliff, and once you're pushing me off it it becomes dangerous and a tool by which you remove me, which means that you are assigning a purpose to it

the cliff isn't dangerous on its own, with no one in the vicinity in order to be endangered, but once a person's (or an animal's) actions bring it to a dangerous point it becomes so, and as such the meaning that has been assigned to it as you said yourself is that it is dangerous, because living things can make it such, although there would be nothing inherently dangerous in that rock formation if it existed independently of life, just as it is taken to do here

and what you said wasn't 'we give meaning to communication tools, sure, but the rest is fair game'. what you said was, word for word, 'You can't make meaning out of meaninglessness'. that argument is undermined by the fact that yes, you can, as is actively demonstrated by your method of communication and in fact -all- methods of communication -- my point here is that whether or not there are grey areas, you are treating everything as the be all and end all, which is the problem here. you are stating something as hard fact in order to make your argument when it isn't, and you're discussing philosophy. that doesn't seem like a particularly good way to go about things.

- Indigo Individual