Imagine the Unimaginable

Another thing I wanted to mention from classes that we had last week was a small topic that came up in use as a hypothetical proof. It was not something that was particularly relevant to the discussion of what literature is, and I do not even remember its original context, but the question as it was posed still seemed quite fascinating, and has been lurking in my mind ever since.

The question as it was brought up was: "try to consider what a new color would look like"

This seemed simply enough as something that should be shunned immediately from to much thought for its obvious impossibility in completion. However, as I was considering this fact over the course of this last week, I actually stumbled on a color that I had never seen before, and felt that it was necessary to bring this topic back to the drawing board. As silly as this may sound at first, I saw what infra-red actually looks like in trying to prove whether or not something I had heard was real. The test proposed to me was that in looking through a camera you can see the infra-red light that is emitted through things like t.v. remote controls, as can be seen in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgsbjlXQMLw

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I wanted to then pose this question:

Do you think that it is possible that we are as philosophers simply ignoring some of the things that are of relevance, even though it just seems as if we can't see them?

Literature, the Oral Tradition

One topic that came up in class last week that I have yet to comment on, but still think to be truly interesting, is the argument over whether or not oral tradition should count as a form, or as part of the definition of literature. In my opinion, this is very specifically a touchy line to walk along, for many people disagree that talking is considered to be the same use of language as writing is. However, when I think of the way that language impacted stories before stories had the opportunity to be written down, I can only go with the opposite of the aforementioned statement and declare that literature (whatever that actually means) is very much inclusive of oral tradition, it does not even get a choice in the matter. For without the stories that existed before written language, there would not have been many of the stories that we still know of today, that we consistently refer to as literature without even realizing it. Thus, when it comes down to it, I think that it would be impossible to consider literature as non-inclusive of the spoken parts of our written language; that is unless you were to consider pieces such as the Odyssey or Beowulf as non-literature.

From the Q&A, Part 4

As a second part of this conversation, I will also walk through the other question that i posed when discussing the topics of literature in my Q&A. This question becomes a little bit more philosophical than it does come down to descriptions, for I begin to wonder if the term "literature" needs to, or even should exist as a useful term in the artistic styles within writing.

The question comes down to this: In understanding the difficulty that there is to be had with trying to come up with the best description for literature, why do we try to make it a term that only confuses and distorts the much better descriptive term of simply "writing". To help explain this confusion I have, consider these two points: 1. what does the word literature really mean to you? and 2. Once you have a good solid understanding of it in your head, what does it really tell you that the word writing could not also tell you?

To help, let us consider an example posed in class. 1. At one point someone mentioned the possibility that literature functions as a good way to describe a "good piece of writing". With this in mind: 2. thinking of it as a good piece of writing literally supersedes the necessity of the word literature in the first place.

Are there any good examples hat you can think of as a descriptive force that better elaborates what Literature actually is without arguably replacing writing as the proper descriptor?

From the Q&A, Part 3

As was discussed in class a lot this past week, I have been wondering very seriously about this conversation concerning the definitions of "Literature" and I think that after some time I have finally come to some of my conclusions on the subject. In my Q&A for last week I posed two questions that somewhat confound the definability and necessity of the term Literature, and I am going to discuss them here.

The first problem that I had with this concept comes down to the simple fact that it is a term that, if used the way that it has been argued by writers, sets the other forms of artistic expression out of balance. To elaborate, consider this: there is no other word that even remotely resembles the term "literature" within the fields of art or music (the other major figureheads of art in my opinion). With this being the case, literature as a term can be seen as somewhat of a braggart descriptor of writing in general, for all that literature really tries to do is make up a better description in the eyes of people trying to sell their novel; suggesting that their work is better than simple writing, for it is rich with "literature".

This is my first issue with the concept of literature, and I pose it as a topic I am interested in discussing further... so what are your thoughts?

The Great

I was pondering one of the things that was discussed in class earlier this week and began trying to get down to a conclusion of some sort. The question seemed easy at first, but then I began to struggle with the reality of it more and more as time passed. In talking about literature, a contradiction was posed asking whether or not a great piece of literature could exist without anyone who liked it. My initial reaction was to dismiss it immediately, that it was simply just silly that such a thing would be unanswerable, for I was thinking from the perspective of "liking" meaning specifically that it was read, not that it was thought to be good. I did not realize that the reality of "great" could very well mean great in a terrible way, and this is where I began thinking.

Despite the fact that it may be terrible in nature does not necessarily qualify it as unlikeable, but I could only phrase this in metaphor. Consider, if you will Hitler, a person that everyone in the world hated for his brutality. Even though he was very much the boon of the happiness of so many, and so greatly hated, there are still people who liked and appreciated his "greatness" even though it was a dark great in nature. Thus it is my conclusion that even if almost everyone on earth did not like something, admitting that it remained great, I believe that it would at this point be statistically impossible that someone didn't like it... But I suppose that would be something fun to try and prove wrong.

From the Q&A, Part 2

The second question I had posted to myself within the Q&A offered this week is actually somewhat correlated to the concept of the other post on the subject. In having considered what style I thought was more significant, I began wondering exactly what it was that I thought to be the best form of transportation within the conveyance of philosophy. Taking the extra time to think about this I have come upon very little success, for there are just realistically so many possibilities.

However, there is one genre that I have always fallen back on with respect to shear appreciation of some concepts that I have witnessed within the genre itself, and that is animation. Now I must say quickly that when I mention animation, I am not talking about "anime" for I find that this generally has a different goal in mind, and thus is considered a different genre. But consider the movie that came out this past year titled "The Illusionist" (I know, you probably haven't seen it, but you should try it some time), it is a film that achieves a monumental derivation of of thought, emotion, and sense of how to live life; which when it comes down to it is like a definition of philosophy. More importantly though, this concept coordinates with two genre's that would seem at first, to be incapable of transferring this philosophy: Art and Sound, without Word or Language. It is this fact that I think sways my decision in the end to say that Animation currently takes he cake as the true conveyance tool of philosophy.

The Literary - Philosophy Continuum

One of the discussion topics that was brought up in class yesterday was whether or not Literary and Philosophical styles of writing were their own respective categories, or rather that they belong on a continuum of technique. Having taken a little time to contemplate this, I have been wondering about both sides quite a bit.

On the front of keeping them separated, I think that it would be more simple for the hope of trying to organize the situation at large. I say this because with the advent of being able to categorize any piece of work by simply declaring that it is either a piece of pure philosophy or an unspecified example of literature, we would be able to get through a lot of examples very quickly for not many works would fall into the pure philosophy category. The only difficulty this process of organization presents is the potential complication of setting the dividing line of what designates the pure philosophy form.

However, the potential to fix that problem is the second option that we had contemplated in our discussion, which would be to organize all of it onto a continuum. This seems at face value to make the most sense, for continuum's are very favorable of organization like this, where there is not necessarily an issue anymore of what the middle ground anymore. The real issue with this concept though is that there would be some serious difficulty in attempting to actually construct this continuum, and it would be very non-descript in its conclusions beyond simply giving an answer to the problem.

Thus, it appears that neither option is the wiser without further adaptation and quite a bit of effort to give elaborate examples; that is unless the goal was to achieve some simple argumentative conclusions. So I ask you oh fruitful blogging community, what do you think? can the continuum / non-continuum argument offer itself as a useful tool to us in this class? and which would you prefer?