/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5236882]

Why is /lit/ so anti-empiricist? Is it because science is hard and you're lazy?

Or is it because you need to desperately validate your bachelor's in arts degrees in some superficial way?

Or is it because you were brainwashed to by your profs, and you being uncritical, swallowed it hook'line'and sinker and to admit now that you've been indoctrinate would be admitting to your lack of initial intelligence to see through the bullshit, so you now go along with the subjectivit/skeptic/egoist/nihilist/hedonist doctrines for fear or having to admit being wrong and mentally feeble/gullible?

[Anonymous No.5236895]

>>5236882
>anti-empiricist
It must be your first day here. Please lurk for at least 1 year before posting. Thanks. :^)

[Anonymous No.5236903]

Empiricism can be refuted in one word: Consciousness.

[Anonymous No.5236926]

>>5236903
>He's actually being serious.

[Anonymous No.5236938]

As a computer scientist and a literary fanatic, I believe everyone should seek to balance out their scientific and spiritual side.

[Anonymous No.5236948]

>>5236938
>spiritual side.

[Anonymous No.5238051]

>>5236903
Consciousness is being studied empirically.

[Anonymous No.5238062]

>>5236938
>>5236903

are you people for real

[Anonymous No.5238110]

/lit/ is not "anti-empiricist", /lit/ just understands that there are some things in life which are currently beyond empirical study. You cannot empirically state what is the most moral way to live your life, you cannot empirically state what is the most beautiful work of art, you cannot empirically state how your identity is formed, you cannot empirically state what your identity even is, you cannot empirically state what is the best party to vote for in the next election etc., etc., etc.

Empiricism is a tool that almost every philosophers supports but it's only that, a tool. You have probably spent a lot time using this tool to confirm your knowledge of the physical world and that's excellent, but there is actually quite a lot beyond your immediate sensory perceptions and it's a little bit ignorant to think that you can measure it all in a lab. Maybe one day you can, but not now.

This is part of a philosophical work by philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell; you might find it interesting.
http://skepdic.com/russell.html

[Anonymous No.5238366]

>>5236882
> cannot into categorization
its called Humanities for a reason. You're like a lost kid in a library.

[Anonymous No.5238463]

>>5238110
>/lit/ is not "anti-empiricist",
Bullshit. The average kid here is just dipping his toes in the philosophical water and has just discovered skepticism. "sceintism" is the default strawman here, on the faulty assumption that "All scientists believe their models are objective facts," usually with a few references to reddit and hats, and the majority gather round to attack the strawman for the counterfeit feeling of superiority.

>You cannot empirically state what is the most moral way to live your life
You cannot do this philosophically either. You get caught in a linguistic net of is/oughts and variable definitions of 'most', struggling in you self-created framework that describes (surprise surprise) empirical events. "Is it wrong to rape/kill/steal..." can and is only addressed through empirical observation, through questions like "what are the psychological effects of rape," "What is the civilian fatality of this drone attack," and these are entered into game theory models and cross referenced with what a government body has deemed legal. Don't assume that a government has adopted a philosophical view like utilitarianism either, their function is to maintain importance.

>you cannot empirically state what is the most beautiful work of art,
Again "most beautiful" is just hand-waving in your linguistic playground. We have created the concept of 'most beautiful', and cry when we can't crowbar it back into the empirical event (the work of art) that we are perceiving. We can, however, analyse why an individual responds to a particular work of art, and explain why an individual would attempt to crowbar the concept "most beautiful" onto the empirical event. And that is the problem, you are describing empirical events, yet contemporary philosophers don't have sufficient knowledge of scientific models of reality in order to make philosophical claims about them.


>but there is actually quite a lot beyond your immediate sensory perceptions.
Your "Actually" being blind faith, yes? Given sensory perception can be extended with microscopes, oscilloscopes, telescopes and various other scopes and methods of detection, if something is both unobservable and having no noticeable effect on the observable, then we cannot discuss it until it is empirically observed. Even Russells teapot would be having a minor impact on gravitational fluctuation and light diffusion, but until it's detected it's irrelevant.

The underlying joke on /lit/s part is that science runs on skepticism. They actively try to falsify their models, and can't even begin to do this if they thought they were objective facts.

[le trole faec ಠ_ಠ !Avm1fqtITk No.5238468]

>>5236903
I hope this is some well-contrived troll

[le trole faec ಠ_ಠ !Avm1fqtITk No.5238475]

>>5238463
>"Is it wrong to rape/kill/steal..." can and is only addressed through empirical observation
Oh man, you were doing so well. You just entered the no spin zone. You can't recover now. Never shift your car into retard gear overstupid.

[Anonymous No.5238481]

>>5238475
>le trole faec
Cant think, can't debate, no discernible intelligence.

[Anonymous No.5238486]

>>5238463
Good bost, tanx man.

But you're giving the opposition too much credit, most people on /lit/ who scoff at science are lazy biological inferiors who find the truth too hard to understand and find love in pleasures of the flesh far greater a reward use poor "excuses" (i.e:continental philosophy) to justify their poor life choices and continue maintaining a fragile bubble of self-esteem.

It's quite sad really, borderline pathological.

[Anonymous No.5238496]

>>5236882
Kid you didn't read Kuhn, Hume or Hegel?

Science is useful, no one is anti-science but it doesn't give us truth and we recognise that. That's literally the only difference between the attitude people on /lit/ have vs your layman.

>the rest of your ad hominem laden post
This is coming from a 3rd year engineering and physics dual degree faggot, you could say I have an acquaintance with the hard sciences.

[Anonymous No.5238498]

>>5238463

>We can, however, analyse why an individual responds to a particular work of art

No.

No we can't.

The current understanding of neuroscience is infantile at best, it is simply not a very developed field yet, and while we have discovered ways to collect data about neural responses we have no good way to use or interpret that data, because we don't actually really understand how the brain works.

And while neuroscience will continue to advance and it is likely that we one day will be able to actually USE neuroscience in a practical way, we cannot right now.

But guess fucking what, people aren't actually willing to wait for neuroscience to advance to the level of proper usefulness before we discuss things like the value of art and other things of that kind.

So we use non-empirical models of value.

This is quite simply necessary. Even if the non-empirical models we're using turn out to be mostly or completely wrong, they're still the only tools we currently have for the appraisal of the human condition.

[Anonymous No.5238501]

OP I tip my fedora unto thee!

[இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ— No.5238510]

>>5236882

I'd like to present the idea that literary criticism is empirical in receiving the text as data and theorising per causes and effects for the text.

[Anonymous No.5238511]

>>5238498
>The current understanding of neuroscience is infantile at best
Haha I wonder just how little you know about neuroscience and where we in our "current understandings".

I wager you know so little, that you have no right to say such a stupid thing.

[Anonymous No.5238512]

>>5238511
Not an argument btw

[Anonymous No.5238513]

Thomas Kuhn
\thread

[Anonymous No.5238514]

>>5238512
>getting called out for making up bullshit and knowing next to nothing on the subject
>Said bullshit is what idiot's argument is based on
>attack obvious bullshit for being bullshit
>"not an argument" he says

Please.

[Anonymous No.5238518]

>>5238514
Still not providing a refutation, I wonder why

[Anonymous No.5238520]

>>5238511

Alright tough guy.

Link me to a paper where neuroscience is used to analyse responses to art and where there is drawn anything remotely resembling a useful or complete conclusion.

You're the one who says it can be done after all.

So lets see it.

[Anonymous No.5238522]

Because scientism is one of the most dangerous ideologies in the world.

[Anonymous No.5238541]

>>5236882
>Is it because science is hard

lol

if scientists are intellectually superior as you imply, why does every scientist/analytic philosopher go WAT IS DIS I DUN UNDERSTAN IT MUST BE HOAX when confronted with the seminal works of phenomenology/structuralism/post-structuralism

[Anonymous No.5238554]

>>5238463
I agree that looking down what appears to be/is the deterministic barrel through empiricism and seeking to actively falsify scientific models is by far the best cognitive tool we've got. I also don't think /lit/ disagrees entirely.

The responses that look like disagreements are generated by wannabe poster-boys for scientism who do nothing but put on their contrarian goggles and type away to dismiss philosophy and what they call 'muh feelings'. Like you've said, neither philosophy, nor empiricism (although I don't see why they're mutually exclusive) can't state what is the most moral way to live your life. But questions that revolve around ifs, oughts and is's are important when you're a human being. When it comes to ethics, philosophy tries to construct useful categories. Some are based on empirical evidence, some aren't. Working with categories is useful though. I think investigating the inter-subjective network of ideas and moralities that we reside in is a human duty. Philosophy does that.

[Anonymous No.5238561]

>>5236882
Because all knowledge aqcuisition is fundamentally abductive.

[Anonymous No.5238565]

>>5238541
>>5238561
Bunch'a idiots.

[Anonymous No.5238578]

>>5236882

I don't think many of us are anti-empiricist. I appreciate science for everything it's done to extend my life and make me more comfortable. It just pisses us off when autists think science is the only thing that matters, when they think because science does a good job of explaining the natural world we can throw literature and philosophy out the window.

But really it's not worth getting too upset about because IME you people don't exist in real life, just in basements/online. Some of my best friends in college were in various STEM fields and they read plenty, liked talking about literature, etc.

[Anonymous No.5238584]

>>5238578
>Some of my best friends in college were in various STEM fields and they read plenty, liked talking about literature, etc.

I majored in Chemistry and the most cultured most of my classmates got was playing Baldur's Gate. STEM majors are cancer, I think you were just lucky to meet a good crowd.

[Anonymous No.5238601]

>>5236882

Reality is purely moral. Degenerates need to be purged, while pure souls need to be raised unto positions of absolute dogmatic authority. This is the only project that a well organized and preferably well armed group ought to pursue. Science is amoral and ahistorical and thus tertiary and purely instrumental. Only pure social coherence and strict legal certainty is desirable as an absolute end; all roles are to be enforced such that the individual legal-moral melodies combine as a single social harmony under total hierarchical rhythm.

Then the song of society will be complete and he individuals can be totally abducted into their enforced social-moral forms of act as society operates in a circular imitation of the continuous harvests, year after year, season after season: We will mark the passing of time with a series of legally certain rituals and ancestral recitations in praise of the deity; we will marry and bury our dead; we will forget all that ever existed prior to the establishment of our true social order.

[இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ— No.5238607]

>>5238601

It's like Hegel had an abortion.

[Anonymous No.5238609]

>>5238584
not that guy, but either he was lucky to meet a good crowd, or you were unlucky to meet a bad crowd.

I don't get it? Are people this fucking insecure and hungry for unanimous zero-sum game approval? I really don't think this 'war' between empiricism/science and philosophy or humanities in general is real. They aren't even mutually exclusive. I think some publishers and publicists (and others who can profit from this) are capitalizing upon this feud and laughing at how a bunch of angry and insecure people go at each other everywhere from magazine/newspaper comment sections to the pits of 4chan.

[Anonymous No.5238610]

>>5238601

[Anonymous No.5238628]

>>5238498
>The current understanding of neuroscience is infantile at best

That was not the point at all. I was highlighting the empirical vs the non-empirical approach. On the empirical side we can conduct an FMRI scan and see that the dendrite arms are firing between axons in the temporal lobe at x rate when the patient is subjected to certain stimuli, but again, this is besides the point. We have already agreed that empirical models are not infallible, and are not objective facts, they are just models that attempt to refine themselves within their own structure.

When you are talking about value in your 'non-empirical' world, you are creating an artificial framework which is still crudely linked to empiricism. Take morality or aesthetics. Lets build a dichotomy - good and bad; or we can build a spectrum between the two with varying shades of goodness and badness. Now, when the subject views the artwork, he can give his opinion in one of our handy catagories. To crudely paraphrase Wittgenstein, "The lumbering ape is roaming around throwing out "Booo" and "yay" to things." And that's essentially what you're doing.

"The what is good" is a non question, and only exists within the artificial language-based realm you have created. Again, you are trying to crowbar your "goodness" into the empirical event and treat it as a form or essence.

If the subject could communicate on an empirical level, he would say "I liked the use of metaphor and free indirect style." See, he relates to tangible things.

[Anonymous No.5238641]

>>5238628

>If the subject could communicate on an empirical level, he would say "I liked the use of metaphor and free indirect style." See, he relates to tangible things.

Exactly how is this substantially different?

Why is saying "This painting is (Good/Bad) according to my arbitrary non-empirical framework of value" worse than saying "These specific aspects of this painting are (Good/Bad) according to my arbitrary non-empirical framework of value"

If ask to elaborate on WHY he find those specific aspects of the painting good, it would still eventually come down to a artificial and made-up idea of what is and isn't "Good and Bad"

[Anonymous No.5238643]

>>5238628
I pretty much agree with this, however, I find problem with the notion that this artificial realm of social institutions (of values, cultural capital and the sort) is supposedly less real than the physical realm.

[Anonymous No.5238650]

>>5236882
Because I don't like what I experienced. It is worthless and empty.

Empirism has a place in science, but it is the ender of art. See for example: Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche sees Sokrates as the murderer of tragedy (the ultimate form of art, according to Nietzsche), since he introduced the will to understand, to perceive to humankind. And thus, tragedy became worthless. Because when you understand everything, there is no place for shock, no place for affection, no place for emotion in any way. Empiricism does away with Apollon and Dionysos, and replaces them with a hollow, grey, but "correctly perceived" world.

Now, of course, this is a fairly constructed idea. Wether it is "true" or not is not relevant for the idea itself. But it should give you (in case you are not just a troll) a brief understanding of why art desperately tries to construct value, and ditches "hard facts" in favour of that.
Post-modernism is the realisation of this, and (the way I understand it) the complete reversal of, the embracing of the useless, meaningless, pointless.

[Anonymous No.5238655]

>>5238628
There is no 'language based realm' Cartesian faggot. All is coherence and the all is thus self-contained. All is law: Legal theory trumps all other fields of inquiry. What is an axon or a dendrite? Objects considered as subjects and thus unified such that all parts identified of each object is united to a subject ad infinitum; then follows the purely legal account derived from ancient Roman Law. The account is one and always one and it only grows more extensive and at the same time more one and there is no room for dissent or disagreement; for the All is contained by the One and the One is self-identical and delimits the All.

[Anonymous No.5238659]

>>5238650
>starts off cryptically alluding to a "dark past"
>Claims science kills art
>Name drops a neitzche essay that is totally unrelated to OP
>Also demonstrates his knoweldge of greek tragedy based off a wikipedia summary
>claims the concept of truth is irrelevant
>End with name dropping post-modernism as a way to dust himself off of any intellectual accountability for the inane babble he just said

hahaha you like 420?

[Anonymous No.5238661]

>>5236882
Look at shit like Lysenkoist Biology or what Stephen Harper is doing to canada right no and you'll see that science is greasy politics' dog, unfortunately.

If everyone had a functional education in science, society would collapse (some of you edgelords think that's kool and x-treem, but you're blowing bubbles with your head up your ass.) Society relies on masses being kept ignorant and concentrated on their own affairs. The humanities, with their anti-empiricism, is needed like an uppaclass entertainment industry, because the bougies need herding too.

[Anonymous No.5238667]

>>5238661
Yeah right, because all those famous revolutionaries were STEM majors

You are talking like the humanities were anti-enlightenment

[Anonymous No.5238668]

>>5236882
>Why is /lit/ so anti-empiricist? Is it because science is hard and you're lazy?
I'm for empiricism and dislike science. What now?

[Anonymous No.5238670]

>>5238667
>You are talking like the humanities were anti-enlightenment
It's like you're begging for an annoying, half-baked insult

[Anonymous No.5238672]

>>5238661
>because the bougies need herding too.
BEAU-TIF-UL!

[Anonymous No.5238678]

>>5238650
>Empirism has a place in science, but it is the ender of art.
WHAT? I would say art is all about empiricism, producing experience in others.

[Anonymous No.5238679]

>>5238668

A Humean anti-realist?

[Anonymous No.5238680]

>>5238659
>starts off cryptically alluding to a "dark past"
I do?

>Claims science kills art
I said art kills value and that art needs value.

>Name drops a neitzche essay that is totally unrelated to OP
I used it to explain my point further.

>Also demonstrates his knoweldge of greek tragedy based off a wikipedia summary
This is right however, I only read the Oresteia (and maybe something else that I don't remember), but does that have much to do with what I said?

>claims the concept of truth is irrelevant
It is to what I said. As I wrote, this is a construct of mind, not an actual literary theory based on evidence or hard facts.

>End with name dropping post-modernism as a way to dust himself off of any intellectual accountability for the inane babble he just said
I namedropped post-modernism because it can be seen as a consequence of this age-old dualism of "science" and "art".

[Anonymous No.5238684]

>>5238678
Do you know what empiricism is? It is not about producing experiences, it is about analyzing experiences that were made.

[Anonymous No.5238693]

Science is great for producing technology and making life easier, but since the problem of induction is impossible to solve, there is no reason to believe that any scientific theories are true.

[Anonymous No.5238698]

This thread is empirically gay.

[Anonymous No.5238709]

>>5238684
Empiricism means knowledge comes from experience. Simply as that. Art affirms that belief, both from the point of the author and the target.
Rationalism is actually the one that could be considered to be the end of art.

[Anonymous No.5238726]

>>5238709
Well, you have a point there. But neither empiricism nor rationalism can yield true meaning, which art recquires - or atleast produces/tries to produce.

[Anonymous No.5238734]

>>5238641
>Why is saying "This painting is (Good/Bad) according to my arbitrary non-empirical framework of value" worse than saying "These specific aspects of this painting are (Good/Bad) according to my arbitrary non-empirical framework of value"

For a start the use of "is" is highly problematic in your example; "The chair is red" vs "The chair seems red to me." Also, because, and ignoring the 'is', they still operate on different orders of abstraction.

>>5238643
>I find problem with the notion that this artificial realm of social institutions (of values, cultural capital and the sort) is supposedly less real than the physical realm.
It's less real because it's not tangable and allows "A is good" and "A is bad" to operate simultaneously with the same weight. It sets 'good' up as the equivalent of an Aristotelian essence, when the notion of A actually 'being' good' is ultimately incoherent. You can structure a concept in linguistics to hold the value of 'true' but it's only true within your created framework. For example, "A is good" is valid within a framework, but so is "The color Purple has conjunctivitis" in another.

[Anonymous No.5238737]

>>5238680
so....you're dumb is what you're saying?

[Anonymous No.5238741]

>>5238737
I guess?

Being dumb would be pretty cool.

[Anonymous No.5238742]

>>5238737
>no penis

Not even art IMO

[Anonymous No.5238746]

>>5238742
It's art BECAUSE you don't think it's art. Do you even pomo?

[Anonymous No.5238747]

Know what's interesting? The mantis shrimp.

It can see if more spectrums than any animal on earth.

Fucken gool!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glOsvm9t7ec

[Anonymous No.5238799]

>>5238746
>Do you even pomo?
So what you're saying is that we are not really in pomo since some people don't have pomo ways of thinking?

[Anonymous No.5238853]

>>5238520
I'm sure your bar for "useful or complete conclusion" is astronomically high (explain universe or GTFO) but try ->

http://www.science-of-aesthetics.org/journal.html

[Anonymous No.5239825]

math grad student here and anti-empiricist stop being 13 year old and at least read Kuhn, OP

[Anonymous No.5239834]

I thought we were done with thread

It was sinking to the bottom where it belonged any then YOU >>5239825 brought back up

Are you even a math grad student? I'm not sure I trust you

[Anonymous No.5239841]

I'll have you know I've been experiencing shit since I can remember, OP.

[Anonymous No.5239888]

>>5239825
You are most likely doing some autism sudoku tier puzzles like number theory or formal logic, and not real math.

[Anonymous No.5239986]

>>5239888
topology & cathegory theory

[Anonymous No.5240561]

>all dat poorly attempted academic obfuscation

Lol philosophy/english majors are pathetic.

[Anonymous No.5240603]

>>5240561
>academic obfuscation
>"I don't understand any of these well-defined terms! pls use layman's terms!"

[Anonymous No.5240609]

>>5238051
It isn't.

[le trole faec ಠ_ಠ !Avm1fqtITk No.5241039]

>>5238481
>Cant think, can't debate, no discernible intelligence.
Even if you knew everything about everything, there is absolutely no way to say what "should" be. You're a moron if you think that's possible.