/lit/ - Literature

look at your fingers.

look at the moon.

realize the notion of these as separate is illusory. then it becomes clear that things like 'right' and 'true' and 'false' are laughable.

qua y qua y qua y qua

>>3073225
So then how can one claim any author is good or bad?

>true
>false

>>3073235

there is no 'good' or 'bad'

only 'i like this more than this for some arbitrary reason'

we have critical models to assess literature in certain respects, but these models too are built on subjective criteria. much of what makes art so poignant can't be explained directly with language or criticism

>>3073240
>there is no 'good'

"SOCRATES: I seriously hope you guys don't do this." - Plato

>>3073222
>>3073225
The novel is a form of literature, and as such, it should be distinguishable from other forms. My fingers and the moon may be inter-linked at some level, but it's more efficient to be able to tell them apart.
As for quality of execution, here too a framework can be set up in which one can distinguish between good and bad instances (according to that framework). Again, it won't be empirical truth, but it can be functional and insightful - something which most facts are not.

>>3073240
communication is more than the banal notion of language being arbitrary.

>>3073251

your notions of what language can do are themselves arbitrary

>>3073253
But its use can be observed. Are we not writing messages to eachother on the internet, and trying (and most of the time, succeeding in doing so) to understand what the other might have meant?

>>3073256

we only 'understand' each other in a loose way. our own perceptions and various filters make the game of discerning meaning collectively a fool's errand

>>3073257
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't understand that, what with all that
>our own perceptions and various filters make the game of discerning meaning collectively a fool's errand
It's a miracle we got as far into the argument as we did, considering.

>>3073267

all i'm trying to say is that there are limits to how far we can keep a pragmatic formalism with regard to language, and even more so with regard to art and the subliminal

>>3073274
In the case of aesthetic experience, I agree. I kept talking generally while the issue was more specific. Let's be friends (btw i'm a girl).

There are no right ways to write, only lots and lots of wrong ones.

>>3073339

let's

True.

Romantics had it right.