[lbo-talk] Inequality on the Diamond

[Carrol Cox]

I.A. Richards and Eliot, at roughly the same time, took up the problem of
poetry and truth: How could one enjoy or value a poem taught false beliefs?
That problem was Richards's point of departure to. He argued that we were
possessed by contradictory feelings, and a poem resolved the tension that
created.  (I read this in the early & mid-50s & don't guarantee my
accuracy.) He later, I think, argued that the "future" triumphs of neurology
would provide  evidence for this. (And got mocked for that by some of the
new critics.) On the basis of a very brief conversation with Gabe  Gudding,
a poet in the English Dept here, I think _some _ contemporary poets are
going back to Good Poetry Must be True position, and also rejecting all the
major "Moderns."

I tend to argue that the only relation to "truth" and "goodness" a literary
text (or for that matter, any text) needs is to raise interesting questions
in an interesting way. (Sort of a superior "conversation piece."") And the
only test of that is if a reasonable number of people continue to talk/write
about the poem. NO VALUE JUDGMENT NEEDED. Not even a theory of 'value' in
poetry; simply an empirical observation.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Jim Farmelant
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 2:40 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Inequality on the Diamond

 
On Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:30:55 -0500 c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> writes:
> Jim Farmelant
> 
> 
> So, is it to safe to say that Carrol is advancing a noncognitivist, 
> if
> not emotivist, view of esthetic and moral judgments? As I recall, 
> I.A.
> Richards popularized an emotivist account of esthetic judgments 
> some
> eighty or ninety years ago. And his account, apparently had some
> influence on those logical positivists who proposed similar 
> accounts
> of moral judgments.
> 
> ^^^^
> CB: Who proposed " boo./rah" theory ? G.E. Moore ?

No, Moore was an intuitionist.  He held that we could
know by intuition that certain things like pleasure and beauty were goods
in themselves.  Emotivism, started, with I.A. Richards,
as a theory of esthetic judgments, and was made
into a theory of moral judgments by A.J. Ayer in
his book, "Language, Truth, and Logic," and
by C.L. Stevenson in his book, "Ethics and
Language."  I think it was R.M. Hare who
pejoratively called emotivism, the "booh/hooray"
theory.  But Hare's prescriptivism is still a
kind of noncognitivism, but which differed
from the emotivisms of Ayer and Stevenson,
because of its emphasis on the universilizability of
moral judgments.

 
Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
www.foxymath.com
Learn or Review Basic Math
____________________________________________________________
How to Fall Asleep?
Cambridge Researchers have developed an all natural sleep aid just for you.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4d0684d35d529fe364st05vuc
___________________________________
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk