/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15336454]

Literature is subordinate to philosophy entirely in terms of what it can say. While a story is confined to characters and settings, imagistic metaphors and the like, philosophy can just tell you what you need to know. Harold Bloom says Shakespeare is the greatest thinker. I have a hard time seeing how Hamlet is somehow more cognitively eye opening than Plato and Hegel.

[Anonymous No.15336466]

>>15336454
nobody cares dude

[Anonymous No.15336479]

>>15336454
you will get a lot of butthurt cope in this thread but you are right

[Anonymous No.15336504]

>Buh muh philosophyer says more inna book den the artist!
Like taking vitamin supplements instead of eating right

[Anonymous No.15336511]

>>15336454
Following the logic you lay down, I can see Shakespeare being a great thinker in that he was an innovator with language. His turns of phases were novel and his way with words effectively permeated general speech.

[Anonymous No.15336516]

Art is a more powerful means of communication than straight instruction. We remember and internalize lessons better from art than we do when they are just told to us.

[Anonymous No.15336538]

>>15336454
Very left brained opinion. I would argue that some ideas in “philosophy” can’t be properly expressed except through literature. Confining ideas to the extremely restricting form of a treatise and words may stop them from ever being expressed properly, which could be done through visual medium or a story. I would say philosophy is a system to understand the ideas, aesthetics, consequences humans put forth in life and by therefore by extension literature. Philosophy doesn’t make literature redundant, but rather philosophy wouldn’t be needed if literature didn’t exist

[Anonymous No.15337520]

>>15336454
While philosophy tells you what you need to know, fiction drip feeds you the exact same morals and information but gives you something more interesting to look at than five old dudes in Ancient Roman fashion.
It's literally the reason why pop media is more popular than "serious" material. It's not that it's more eye opening, but that it's eye opening with flashy lights.

[Anonymous No.15338483]

>>15336454
Decent fiction, whether the author had it in mind when writing or not, does not derive its value from a discrete set of abstractions that can be listed on a page of a philosophy tract. Books with muh themes are not just entertaining composites of story-telling (which, in OP's mind, seems to have no value beyond the superficial) with some arbitrarily chosen philosophical points forked in by a pseud author.
Fiction blends a million elements into a product that enriches the soul (or psyche, or mind, whatever) of the reader. No matter how hard philosofannys cope, their very minds are intertwined with the narrative, the poem, the prose, that is found within the fiction they so proudly spurn.
While a philosopher might write a synopsis, might describe what a story is on a meta-level, they can never truly encompass the depth found within even a simple novels (though it might be said that the simplest novels are the often the most complex, and the most complex novels are often the simplest). The despair of the philosopher, the cynicism and the bitterness and contempt for humanity that philosophers so often espouse, is rooted in the subconscious realization that their endless pooping about with empty abstractions will never click into place, will never yield an even half-satisfying conclusion that isn't STILL ROOTED in fiction, in the story, in the narrative.

[Anonymous No.15338516]

>>15338483
Oh, what's more:
No philosopher will EVER write anything half as valuable as the Sonichu comic.

[Anonymous No.15338533]

>>15336454
Seems like a false dichotomy since lots of great philosophy was presented in literary fashions and using literary styles, Plato’s Republic, Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, Nietzsche’s corpus.

[Anonymous No.15338657]

Literature and philosophy are different animals. Philosophy merely says what is and what should be. Literature is almost unexplainable. If you trust Schopenhauer, it's about representing Platonic Ideas in their purest objectification. Personally, I believe art is kind of like a mirror into things which we already have. This can be a metaphysical mirror (like what Schopenhauer calls a reflection of the Ideas) or, equally valuable, it can reflect parts of experience. A book can be like a good mentor, making the reader think and act differently. If Mody Dick made you interested in the ocean, that's cool. If Moby Dick made you want to read the Bible, that's cool, regardless of whether you believe in it or not. If Moby Dick made you imagine you were chasing the whale when you're on the rowing machine at the gym, that's also cool. The benefit of literature doesn't have to be all pseud-y; it can simply make your mind a more pleasant habitat, allowing better desires and actions to grow and flourish.

[Anonymous No.15338673]

>>15336454
>>15338533
I think it's something in the middle. An average novel or book will always say less than most philosophical works. Nevertheless, the more complex ideas can only be expressed through metaphoric writing, not the literal writing we are accustomed to on philosophy, what makes Plato, Kierkegaard, or even the Bible really complex and philosophical pieces of literature which, at the same time, are talking about multiple philosophical questions at the same time.
I came to believe that the real problem is when a philosopher tries to express a simple philosophical idea through metaphors only to appear profound (for example, the trolley problem).

[Anonymous No.15338676]

Philosophy tries to figure out how the world is. Literature shows what effect this has on a personal life.

[Anonymous No.15338706]

>>15336454
>what it can say
>what you need to know
These are not the same. That literature should "say" the same thing as philosophy is relativistic nonsense. Ideas can be borrowed from either side but they are entirely different subjects with entirely different ends. Which is what makes it all the more tiresome. Knowledge subordinated to a function of utility. Do you really think just because you "read" philosophy that gives you the skills necessary to interrogate literary texts, to actually engage with them as works of art beyond "beep boop map/territory correlation"? Concepts don't just automatically align with literary devices. You are limiting what the mind is capable of to an arbitrary and lifeless sphere of ideas.

[Anonymous No.15338752]

> Literature is worse than philosophy at being philosophy
brilliant

[Anonymous No.15338906]

>>15337520
You never read philosophy.

[Anonymous No.15338943]

>>15336454
The best fiction often has a philosophical element to it, and fiction for the most part is a much better medium to communicate philosophical inquires with because most people think about the world in terms of stories and human relations, and not autistic logical proofs. Not to mention that most philosophers were shitty writers (looking at you Hegel, Kant, and 17 - 18 century philosophers in general), so most people aren't going to give their works a light of day. Again, because more people aren't autistic and don't enjoy reading large tomes filled with nothing but meandering logical proofs.

[Anonymous No.15339389]

Bumping because this board severely lacks in good, on topic discussion threads

[Anonymous No.15339845]

At the highest level for each supposedly separate mode, philosophy and literature very much resemble the other, and in fact, become indistinguishable.

[Anonymous No.15341062]

>>15336454
what did the majority of people get more out of with regards to (for example) postmodern discourse: frederic jameson or the monologues about phil collins in american psycho?

[Anonymous No.15341064]

>>15336454
I thought this thread was going to be about anime.

[Anonymous No.15341262]

>>15336454
Literature seems the middle ground between other forms of art and philosophy. Does that make sense?

[Anonymous No.15341380]

>>15336454
A great mind can do philosophy AS literature. Plato was able to write narrative in the Republic. Nietzsche expressed his worldview in the story of Zarathustra. Aristotle even managed to make the Athenian constitution into a poem.
I'm not going to waste my time reading a bunch of midwits who can't write something both true and beautiful at the same time.

[Anonymous No.15342017]

bump for the stupidity and arrogance of the philosopher

[Anonymous No.15342029]

>>15336454
Let me reduce it. Artistic things try to impart quality and sensation, while Phil try’s more for quantification and extrapolation of sensation.

[Anonymous No.15342064]

>>15336454
Jesus spoke in parables -- they were sensual, figural -- not syllogisms.

God is not a philosopher, He is a poet.

[Anonymous No.15342233]

>>15336454
Imagine thinking this. Imagine falling for the allegory meme

[Anonymous No.15342387]

>>15338673
>>15342064
>the bible is a work of philosophy

[Anonymous No.15342537]

>>15342387
please just shut the fuck up

[Anonymous No.15342636]

>>15342537
Typical religious person. Responding in defense of their ideas with sanctimony instead of rational argument.

[Anonymous No.15342652]

If you read fiction for the purpose of intellectual enlightenment, you’re bound to be disappointed. Fiction exists to provide the reader with an aesthetic, emotional, intriguing, and moral experience. It is not there for the purpose of pedagogy.

[Anonymous No.15342807]

>>15342636
not religious you're just idiotic and have no intellectual authority to determine what qualifies as philosophy and what doesn't, so I beg you once again, please shut the fuck up

[Anonymous No.15342863]

>>15342807

[Anonymous No.15342998]

>>15342807
You haven't provided any coherent arguments other than "hur dur ur wrong".

[Anonymous No.15343002]

>>15336504
underrated

[Anonymous No.15343010]

>>15338657
based

[Anonymous No.15343730]

>>15338752

underrated post

[Anonymous No.15344313]

It was through the works of Homer by which ancient Greece was born out of the dark age into a fully fledged culture. All philosophy are derivatives of literature