Exploring Fictional Truth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Folde
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Fictional Objects ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Fictional Truth

There are ghosts. At least, in "Hamlet" there are. This is an example of a fictional truth, of something true in a fiction. Or so it seems. For, once we broaden our view to all kinds and realms of fiction our ordinary notions are challenged, and intriguing philosophical questions arise. Are there really any fictional truths? How can they be determined? Is everything just interpretation? Can anything be fictional? Could you be part of a fiction? Et cetera. The philosophical literature on fiction typically focusses on the semantics of fictional discourse and the ontology of fictional objects. In contrast, this study explores the nature of fictional truth by analyzing its conceptual structure and by unfolding some of its most important conceptual connections. After reviewing the field and identifying core elements that any theory of fictional truth must accommodate Christian Folde investigates several interrelated issues central to the on-going debates. Building on a clear account of fictional content and a wealth of examples the author offers novel solutions to various problems at the intersection of fictional truth, interpretation, and narration. The book thereby makes contributions to aesthetics, metaphysics and literary theory, among other things, and is thus both of philosophical and interdisciplinary value.

Enunciation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Smith
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Jacques Lacan ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
General Linguistics ◽  
The Individual

Enunciation refers to the act of making a spoken or written statement, as opposed to the content of the statement. It is associated with the work of French linguist Émile Benveniste, whose Problems in General Linguistics (1966) argued that formalist and structuralist accounts of language fail to pay sufficient attention to the fact that many of the core elements of any language, such as the pronouns “I” and “you,” are entirely dependent for their function on the unique circumstances in which they are enunciated. Enunciation thus describes the process by which a speaker or writer takes up the position of a linguistic subject. Benveniste further argued that all acts of language use are fundamentally dialogical in nature, although the individual acts of speaking and listening, writing and reading may be widely separated in place and time. These questions played a pivotal role in the shift, both in literary theory and in the human sciences more broadly, from structuralism to poststructuralism through the course of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This involved a shift from the study of language as a signifying system, to the study of discourse as the range of different processes by which individual acts of speaking and writing, listening and reading, are framed in advance by formal and informal rules and conventions. Every actual instance of language use is inseparable from its enunciative situation, and this entails attention to the questions of who is speaking, to whom, and why? As developed in different ways by theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, the linguistics of enunciation would raise profound questions about the role of language in the formation of subjectivity and in the discursive operation of power.

scholarly journals Metaphysical perspectives on YHWH as a fictional entity in the Hebrew Bible

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacobus W. Gericke
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Fictional Objects ◽  
Philosophy Of Fiction ◽  
Theoretical Overview

Within a literary ontology, YHWH in the Hebrew Bible is technically also a fictional entity or object. In Hebrew Bible scholarship, a variety of philosophical issues surrounding fiction have received sustained and in-depth attention. However, the mainstream research on these matters tends to focus on the philosophical foundations of or backgrounds to a particular literary theory, rather than on metaphysical puzzles as encountered in the philosophy of fiction proper. To fill this gap, the present article seeks to provide a meta-theoretical overview of the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on the metaphysics of fictional objects. Three views (and their sub-currents) are discussed, namely possibilism, (neo-)Meinongianism and (literary) creationism. Each view’s theory is introduced and critically appropriated with reference to what is implied to be an answer to the question of what exactly the biblical character YHWH can meaningfully be said to be in the context of the metaphysics of fictional objects. In this way, the present study also goes beyond the traditional concern with the nature of God in Old Testament theology.

scholarly journals Ikoniczność: podobieństwo i „tertium comparationis"

2007 ◽  
pp. 103-118
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Tabakowska
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
External Reality ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Mind ◽  
And Linguistics ◽  
Tertium Comparationis ◽  
Theory Of Literature

The paper analyses the phenomenon of iconicity in relation to its significance for literary theory. One of the key notions in modern philosophy of language and linguistics, iconicity is seen as a motivated interrelation beween form and meaning. In this, it is akin to mimesis - one of the basic concepts in theory of literature. Based on similarity, iconicity requires a conscious presence of an observer, who discovers and states the existence of similarity by reference to a tertium comparationis. It occurs as an effect of a mental process, as an interface bewteen semantics (the level of conventionalized meaning) and pragmatics (the level of contextual modifications of meaning). Thus it is intrinsically subjective: a representation of things as seen by a cognizant mind. Defined as a similarity between a conceptual structure and a linguistic form created by the mind, iconicity is manifested as sequentiality, proximity or quantity of elements; it is either imagic or diagrammatic. As a property of all texts and all discourse, it blurs the traditional distinction between "literary" and "non-literary" uses of language: the difference reduces to one of quantity, which "literatury" being characterised by a larger quantity of motivated interrelationships combined with a lower level of their conventionalization. The author concludes by claiming that - like mimesis - iconicity may be profitably discussed in terms of Roland Langacker's notion of subjectification, with the tertium comparationis present in the mind rher than in the external reality.

Pandhawa Gubah sebagai Representasi Interaksi Metafisik Manusia Jawa dan Perbandingannya dengan Cheritera Pandawa Lima

Manuskripta ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Novarina Novarina
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Research Objects ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Comparative Study

Abstract: This research is a comparative literary study that uses Malay and Javanese versions of Mahabarata text sources. The research objects used were the text edition of Pandhawa Gubah (PG) by Sudibjo Z. Hadisutjipto and the text of Cheritera Pandawa Lima (CPL) by Khalid Hussain. The research method used is descriptive-analysis method. In the comparative study used a comparative literary theory proposed by Endraswara (2011). The results of the text comparison reveal the similarities and differences in the image of Bima figures in the Javanese and Malay versions. The equation as a whole is that both texts contain the same heroic storyline and heroic character, Bima. In addition, Indian influence is still evident in the two texts seen from the nuances of Hinduism that exist in both texts. While the difference is seen in the events that accompany Bima's struggle in achieving his victory. Based on these similarities and differences, it can be seen that the authors attempt to represent the concept of metaphysical interactions vertically and horizontally expressed through PG text. --- Abstrak: Penelitian ini adalah satu kajian sastra bandingan yang menggunakan sumber teks Mahabarata versi Melayu dan Jawa. Objek penelitian yang digunakan adalah edisi teks Pandhawa Gubah (PG) karya Sudibjo Z. Hadisutjipto dan teks Cheritera Pandawa Lima (CPL) karya Khalid Hussain. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode deskriptif-analisis. Dalam telaah perbandingan digunakan teori sastra bandingan yang dikemukakan Endraswara (2011). Hasil perbandingan teks mengungkapkan adanya persamaan dan perbedaan citra tokoh Bima dalam versi Jawa maupun versi Melayu. Persamaan secara keseluruhan adalah kedua teks tersebut mengandung alur cerita kepahlawanan dan tokoh pahlawan yang sama yaitu Bima. Selain itu, pengaruh India masih tampak dalam kedua teks tersebut dilihat dari nuansa Hinduisme yang ada dalam kedua teks. Sementara perbedaannya tampak pada peristiwa-peristiwa yang menyertai perjuangan Bima dalam mencapai kemenangannya. Berdasarkan persamaan dan perbedaan tersebut tampak adanya upaya penulis untuk merepresentasikan konsep interaksi metafisik secara vertikal dan horizontal yang diungkapkan melalui teks PG.

Translating Deleuze: On the Uses of Deleuze in a Non-Western Context

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-329
Author(s):  
Yu-lin Lee
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Chinese Context ◽  
East West ◽  
Critical Aspects

This paper aims to explore the appropriation of Deleuzian literary theory in the Chinese context and its potential for mapping a new global poetics. The purpose of this treatment is thus twofold: first, it will redefine the East–West literary relationship, and second, it will seek a new ethics of life, as endorsed by Deleuze's philosophy of immanence. One finds an affinity between literature and life in Deleuze's philosophy: in short, literature appears as the passage of life and an enterprise of health and thus seeks new possibilities of life, which consists in the invention of a new language and a new people. But what kind of health may such a view provide for a non-Western individual, people, literature and culture? This investigation further appeals to the medium of translation. This paper argues that the act of translation functions as a means of deterritorialisation that displays continuing variations of a language, and through translation, Deleuze's clinical and critical aspects of literature promote a transversal poetics that transcends the binary, oppositional conception of East–West and an immanent ethics of life that overcomes the sentiment of ressentiment.

Veiled Theory: The Transmutation of Anthropology in T. S. Eliot's Critical Method

Paragraph ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Trexler
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Philosophical Investigation ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
Human History ◽  
Critical Practice ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Historical Moment

While literary criticism is often seen as an unself-reflective forerunner to literary theory, this article argues that T.S. Eliot's theory of critical practice was a philosophically informed methodology of reading designed to create a disciplinary and institutional framework. To reconstruct this theory, it enriches theoretical methodology with intellectual and institutional history. Specifically, the article argues that Eliot's early critical theory depended on the paradigms of anthropology and occultism, developed during his philosophical investigation of anthropology and Leibniz. From this investigation, Eliot created an occult project that used spiritual monads as facts to progress toward the Absolute. The article goes on to argue that Eliot's methodology of reading was shaped by anthropology's and occultism's paradigms of non-academic, non-specialist reading societies that sought a super-historic position in human history through individual progress. The reconstruction of Eliot's intellectual and institutional framework for reading reveals a historical moment with sharp differences and surprising similarities to the present.

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