david,
you say
"It seems to me that talk of 'what actually happened' is 'talk of a world
that exists outside language' "
i'd suggest it is talk containing the CLAIM or PRETENSION that it is about a
world that exists outside language. listening to someone telling you what
happened in her car accident is not the car accident (as seen without her
interest in getting insurance compensation, as seen by a witness, or as seen
from a god's eye perspective - none of which is known to you after listening
to the account. all you have is your reading of her account, your
imagination. you can accept the claim of accurate representation or not,
but this is your choice and your choice has nothing to do with what
happened, only what you believe happened.
after agreeing with me "that everything written is written from a particular
perspective, is colored by ideological lenses and vested interest in the
subject matter, relying on a vocabulary and syntactical structures.
you say
"the next bit about 'what actually happened' is where I get lost.
This goes to the heart of what I find problematic about the assertion that
all writing is fiction. The statement only achieves its rhetorical force if
it is contrasted with the dismissed non-fiction. If non-fiction is not
possible the assertion is hollow. In the end this is just playing with
language."
why don't you replace "is not possible" with "is possible for those who
accept the claim that it can be distinguished from fiction" then the
argument is far from hollow. indeed if you talk to your librarian, she is
likely able to distinguish between fiction and non-fiction, not caring about
the role that language plays.
finally, you say
"Perhaps we should be silent about the things we cannot talk about"
the last sentence of wittgenstein's tractatus logico-philosophicus reads
"whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" -- but you know that
already.
klaus
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