Quote from: luckswallowsall on September 27, 2018, 01:28:33 PM
Here's a queston: Does it count as fictional if it's not intended to be fictional?

If the goat herders who wrote the Bible were psychotic enough to actually believe that they were in touch with some higher power when they wrote what they wrote and they actually believed that their stories were literally true... then would it still be fiction?

If a book tries and fails to represent reality, isn't that just inaccurate non-fiction? Whether it's a story that's written or not?

If it's supposed to be a true story, and believed to be a true story by the writers of that story, but the story actually fails to be true, is that fiction?

Outstanding question.  Can you give us a post-modern answer ala Derrida?  Other post-WW II European Continental philosophers are relevant, for extra credit.

Quote from: luckswallowsall on September 27, 2018, 04:51:12 PM
Yes, it doesn't... as an antonym is merely the direct opposite of a synonym and a synonym is not a homonym. Basically, if a word has an antonym then it just means that that word refers to the opposite of something similar.

The really relevant thing, and the problem here, is the fact that there's more than one sense of "fiction" and each sense will have different opposites. The most logical opposite being the direct absence of itself.

Basically, we need to create true rather than false dichotomies... but we can only create true dichotomies to each specific sense of a word, as different senses are not identical to each other, as if they were identical they wouldn't even be different senses.

This is also why dictionaries are better than thesauruses if you want to actually know the meanings of words, rather than just try and find similar words, or opposite meanings to similar words. Thesauruses can make your head spin if you're not careful. If you want to develop a mind full of equivocations, then learn meanings of words through thesauruses rather than dictionaries.

Can you give me an example of how fiction = fact, or an example of how fact = fiction.  I understand you presented a list somewhere of your definitions, but I'm not going to search for it.  A little copy/paste on your end would be helpful.

Quote from: SGOS on September 27, 2018, 07:15:44 PM
Can you give me an example of how fiction = fact, or an example of how fact = fiction.  I understand you presented a list somewhere of your definitions, but I'm not going to search for it.  A little copy/paste on your end would be helpful.

I think he means pragmatically, which is ironic, because he claims he is opposed to pragmatism ;-)

Quote from: luckswallowsall on September 27, 2018, 03:37:58 PM
The way I see it is... the bible may or may not be fiction... as the authors may or may not have intended for it to be a made-up story.... but regardless of whether the bible is fiction or not, it certainly isn't factual, and it certainly is nonsense.

I guess I consider fiction to be something that is intentionally transparently represented to be untrue.

Fiction starts with making it transparent that "This is not a true story."

Look at it this way: For something to be false it has to simply not be true. For something to be a lie it has to be intentionally untrue but presented as if it's true in order to deceive others. For something to be fiction it has to be intentionally untrue but transparently presented as such so that everyone knows it's just a story.

I think that if the bible authors genuinely believed what they wrote... then the bible is nonsense but the writers of the bible were not liars, nor is the bible a work of fiction.

I think that if the bible authors didn't believe what they wrote, but they intentionally misrepresented what they wrote as truth... then the bible is a work of deception, and a way to con people (and perhaps control primitive people)... but it's not fiction.

I think that if the bible authors didn't believe what they wrote, but they presented what they wrote as not true and just a story... then either somehow everyone else around them forgot that it was just a story... or people used to know it was just a story but many years later everyone forgot that it was just a story.... or the bible authors presented it as just a story, and a work of fiction, but no one believed them and others insisted that it was true. This would be very bizarre. But it's not impossible... as it's rather similar to how people who deny that they're a guru or deny that they're a messiah tend to only strengthen the conviction in others that they are some sort of guru, or that they are the messiah . .  . in any case, if one of these options is true then I'd say that the bible is indeed a work of fiction.

Regardless of which is the case, the bible isn't factual, and it certainly doesn't represent reality.

If everything that isn't factual is fictional... then the bible is indeed fictional.

But I think that there's more to the meaning of "fictional" than that. I think that's why we have fiction versus non-fiction... rather than fiction versus factual, in the book stores. Some people may write non-fiction that turns out to be far from factual... and some may write fictional stories that accidentally turn out to be true.

It would be irrational for you to put the onus on me... so in that sense it would be unfair. 

Indeed. Even if the bible isn't a work of fiction, is still far from factual.

I notice you are using two different senses of "fiction" there. As, of course, a book can't be both fiction and not fiction in the same sense. And that was the point of my question.

There are many books that are non-fictional in the sense that they are intended to represent fact... but they are fictional in the sense that they don't actually represent fact.

Basically, my question comes down to, do failures to represent fact go in the fiction section? Or do only stories intended to be just stories go in the fiction section?

We could be doing the semantic dance here. :)  We don't know and can't know what the intent of the authors of any of the bible was; but we know what the outcome is.  And we can make some pretty good guesses as to why the bible content was selected from the huge amount of material they could draw from; and why the material that was not used was destroyed (as much as they could).  Clearly the material was manipulated on purpose; why else would the extra material be destroyed?  That adds up to fiction presented as fact and used to control the acts and minds of a large number of people, 

Also, I have read very few novels that tell me anywhere in the story that it is fiction.  That's why book stores have fiction and non-fiction sections.  I don't remember any of the sci-fi/fantasy books telling me they were fictional.  Seems to me that a book can be fiction no matter the intent of the author.

The great mythologies of today, are all recognized as fiction, although at the time of their creation they were either thought to be truth, passed off as truth, or intended to be truth.  None the less, they are now recognized as fiction.  OK, a few people probably think they are true stories, but what can you do to accommodate such people?  Best to leave them alone.  As a matter of practicality, their beliefs don't count.  They have no evidence to support them, and they don't qualify as fact.

Quote from: luckswallowsall on September 27, 2018, 04:51:12 PMan antonym is merely the direct opposite of a synonym and a synonym

Antonym is the antonym of synonym.  :P

Quote from: Baruch on September 27, 2018, 07:10:54 PM
All of philosophy is about language and how it is used and misused.  Otherwise philosophers have nothing to say -- my paraphrase of Wittgenstein.

But because we use language to make sense of our world... and philosophy helps us deal with making sense of our language... philosophy is therefore very important.

It can be said that once something becomes truly useful it ceases to be philosophy. This may be so, but this doesn't change the fact that science, mathematics and logic all birthed out of philosophy.

And philosophers can also directly help the sciences. The most obvious contribution being Karl Popper's theory of falsifiability. Before the philosopher Karl Pooper helped out scientists were essentially doing the equivalent to doing their best to refer that all swans were white by finding enough white swans. Since Popper stepped in scientists now instead do the equivlialent of discovering that all swans aren't white by finding one swan that isn't white. Falsifiability theory is vastly superior to verificationism. It's the same with logic... you only have to find one contradiction to know that something isn't the case. And the only true way to confirm that something is certain is to prove that the opposite is impossible.

Quote from: Baruch on September 27, 2018, 07:12:08 PM
Outstanding question.  Can you give us a post-modern answer ala Derrida?  Other post-WW II European Continental philosophers are relevant, for extra credit.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. I don't know of Derrida and I'm a critic of post-modernism. It seems to have far too much in common with pragmatism for my liking. I'm not a fan of defining reality inside of "what works", there's more to reality than our own narrow motives, or indeed our motives however noble or ignoble, however deep or shallow. We may think that we've figured out what really matters and is really useful and call that "truth", and yet what actually may be most useful may be outside of what we defined to be useful... so I find pragmatism self-defeating even in its own terms, if we consider it's goals. Ironically, some of the most useful ideas are had by those who aren't searching for a useful idea. Sometimes people are inspired by something or enjoy seeking the truth for its own sake, and it turns out to be useful of a side effect. I am no fan of what I know of post-modernism either, as, from what I've seen, it seems to have similar problems. It seems self-serving in a way that ignores reality.

Quote from: SGOS on September 27, 2018, 07:15:44 PM
Can you give me an example of how fiction = fact, or an example of how fact = fiction.  I understand you presented a list somewhere of your definitions, but I'm not going to search for it.  A little copy/paste on your end would be helpful.

Fiction could be a fact by accident. Say, someone made up a story that they believed was just a made up story and then it turned out to be true.

It sounds bizarre.

But science fiction is the best example of this that I can think of. Of course 99% of the time (at least) science fiction is completely over the top. But, even if we're only being hypothetical, imagine a case where a science fiction novel is written about particular futuristic technology being around by, say, the year 2048... and then imagine that that technology actually comes about by the year 2048. There may also be a lot of stories that aren't factual in that non-fiction book... but the point is that fiction refers to something that is intended to not be factual, and is just meant to be a story...

It's kind of similar to how someone can intentionally lie about something and turn out to be right by accident. In other words, they weren't 'telling the truth', but they accidentally said something that was true.

I'm not saying fact is fiction or fiction is fact. I'm saying that the true dichotomy is fiction and non-fiction (which may be why they are categorized that way . . . ) rather than fiction and factual.

The other way around would be an example like the Bible, if it was indeed not intended as fiction. If the writers of the Bible really believed that they were writing something that represented reality, and it wasn't just a made-up story, then they intended it to be non-fiction, and it is thus classified as non-fiction even if it's not remotely factual.

This is also why pseudo-scientific books can go in the non-fiction section even though they're a load of nonsense. They're attempts at being factual. And likewise, even if someone wrote a fictional novel that was accidental prophecy and predicted everything that it made-up in the novel... it would still be fiction. As it was intended to just be a story. On the other hand, a book making predictions about the future that all turn out to be nonsense, is non-fiction, regardless of how right or wrong those fictions are.

Dictionaries track usage of definitions... they don't create definitions. And people most definitely do use 'fiction' to refer to something intended to just be a story and definitely do use 'non-fiction' to refer to that which is supposed to be factual, whether it succeeds or not (again, this is why pseudo-science books aren't in the fiction section).

But, for what it's worth, from the Google dictionary:

"Relating to or occurring in fiction; invented for the purposes of fiction."

My bold added. This is the sense of 'fictional' that I'm referring to.

Quote from: luckswallowsall on September 28, 2018, 05:07:54 PM
I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. I don't know of Derrida and I'm a critic of post-modernism. It seems to have far too much in common with pragmatism for my liking. I'm not a fan of defining reality inside of "what works", there's more to reality than our own narrow motives, or indeed our motives however noble or ignoble, however deep or shallow. We may think that we've figured out what really matters and is really useful and call that "truth", and yet what actually may be most useful may be outside of what we defined to be useful... so I find pragmatism self-defeating even in its own terms, if we consider it's goals. Ironically, some of the most useful ideas are had by those who aren't searching for a useful idea. Sometimes people are inspired by something or enjoy seeking the truth for its own sake, and it turns out to be useful of a side effect. I am no fan of what I know of post-modernism either, as, from what I've seen, it seems to have similar problems. It seems self-serving in a way that ignores reality.

OK.  But the point of analysis of texts is deconstruction.  But you aren't talking about analysis of texts?  And as a realist ... vs an anti-realist for example ... you believe that actual abstract truths can be posited without reference to empiricism?  Aside from logic and mathematics of course?

i am afraid that Kant's a priori vs a posteriori is rather obsolete.  He thought that Euclidean geometry not only was the only geometry, but also the one that corresponds to physical reality.  We now know that neither are true.  And a posteriori is tricky too, because our a priori models partially condition how we do empiricism (see hidden markov model analysis of statistical data).

Quote from: luckswallowsall on September 27, 2018, 04:51:12 PM
Yes, it doesn't... as an antonym is merely the direct opposite of a synonym and a synonym is not a homonym. Basically, if a word has an antonym then it just means that that word refers to the opposite of something similar.

The really relevant thing, and the problem here, is the fact that there's more than one sense of "fiction" and each sense will have different opposites. The most logical opposite being the direct absence of itself.

Basically, we need to create true rather than false dichotomies... but we can only create true dichotomies to each specific sense of a word, as different senses are not identical to each other, as if they were identical they wouldn't even be different senses.

This is also why dictionaries are better than thesauruses if you want to actually know the meanings of words, rather than just try and find similar words, or opposite meanings to similar words. Thesauruses can make your head spin if you're not careful. If you want to develop a mind full of equivocations, then learn meanings of words through thesauruses rather than dictionaries.

Don't underestimate a thesaurus.  Context can be enlightening.

Quote from: Cavebear on October 01, 2018, 09:40:28 AM
Context can be enlightening.

This should be considered before one launches into a pedantic semantic ramble.  Does a person truly not understand, or does he just want to up his post count? 

Quote from: SGOS on October 01, 2018, 11:24:26 AM
This should be considered before one launches into a pedantic semantic ramble.  Does a person truly not understand, or does he just want to up his post count?

Wrong perpetrator ... wall-of-text posts generally aren't worth it.  You would think to write an essay, they had taken time to think it thru .. but since cut-and-paste literacy has been all downhill ;-(

Quote from: SGOS on October 01, 2018, 11:24:26 AM
This should be considered before one launches into a pedantic semantic ramble.  Does a person truly not understand, or does he just want to up his post count?

Baruch makes me do it.  I am totally innocent, innocent I say!.  If I ignore him, I get complaints.  If I respond, I get complaints.  Some things, you can't win. 

I think Baruch is a master of catachresis.