Something you're not likely to see from me again soon

[Chris Brooke]

>  >> What?s the difference? Aren't these two but exercises in imagination
>  >> unencumbered by experience?  The main diffrence seems to be that philosphy
>  >> is the refuge for those who cannot write good poetry.
>  >
>>  Didn't Heidegger himself say that all  philosophers are failed
>>  poets?
>
>And Rudolf Carnap sometimes suggested that metaphysics was
>perhaps best understood as a species of poetry since in his view
>metaphysical statements were cognitvely meaningless but
>which could have emotive or evocative meanings.

And Jon Elster wrote in the Preface to his Ulysses and the Sirens:

"Many philosophers and social scientists at some time in their lives 
have wanted to write fiction or poetry, only to find that they didn't 
have what it takes. Others have chosen philosophy or social science 
as a second choice when they decided that their first choice of doing 
mathematics really was not within their abilities. The present work 
is at the intersection of these two failures."

C.
-- 

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Chris Brooke
Magdalen College

http://voiceoftheturtle.org