ken,
it's barely worth my time to engage with you in public debates about things
that may not matter to other participants in this list, but it bothers me
and i have been told by others as well how you so often distort what is
being said and justify your singular point with lengthy citations from
dictionaries, hide your opinions behind objective terms, as opposed to let
us enjoy contemplating alternative perspectives on all too settled concepts
-- which this list does quite well sometimes. not that everyone is always
clear, profound, and unquestionable.
in the context of my suggestion that history is not produced by cameras but
by creative historians who write to be read by other historians and
interested contemporaries, you judged my syllogism faulty. i am quoting you
quoting me:
>Your concluding "if" takes the form of an incorrect syllogism: "if fiction
is created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to make sense of,
as i suggested, history is fiction with the claim that it is based on what
happened."<
In terms of propositional logic "if" is not concluding anything. it is
followed by a condition. and "is" signifies an equivalence relationship,
here by definition.
in terms of logic i said: "if A (fiction) = (is [defined as]) X (created,
composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to make sense of) and as i
suggested B (history) entails X, then it follows that B (history) = A
(fiction) with the claim that it is based on what happened.
in reading my assertion you replaced "A = X" by "A entails X " and you
blamed me for not saying that X is the ONLY entailment of A (and B).
obviously, i did not say either and in fact i stated the important provision
that writing history entails the claim that it is based on what happened.
just be a little careful with your judgments and treat you colleagues and
people on the list with some respect.
klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken
Friedman
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 7:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The Entailments of History -- [Was: language and fiction]
Dear Klaus,
Thanks for your post. After Lubomir's note, I was thinking of saying that I,
too, would give this thread a rest. You've asked a fair question, though,
and this deserves a response. What follows seems straightforward to me, so
plain that some readers will think me foolish for even stating this. For
anyone tired of this, my apologies.
In your last post, you wrote:
--snip--
in logical terms: "if A = X and B entails X (having been stated separately)
it follows that A entails X."
--snip--
The problem is that this was not your original syllogism. In your original
syllogism, you said,
If A entails X and B entails X, then A = B.
where
A is (fiction)
B is (history)
X is (created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to make sense
of)
My argument is that both fiction and history -- A and B -- have other,
different, entailments.
Following this post, I include the etymology and definitions of "fiction"
and "history" from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford
English Dictionary. There are commonalities and common points in etymology
and meaning -- just as you argue. But some of these are now obsolete or
archaic, and the general meaning of each word is conditioned by key factors.
I see these key factors as the entailments of each term. There may be more
entailments, but these are necessary and sufficient for the argument that
follows. They are necessary for historiography and writing history, but they
may not be sufficient for historiographic practice and writing history.
These are the symbols for the entailments summarized in these definitions.
T is (truth claim)
E is (evidentiary foundation)
IT is (irrelevance of truth)
IE is (irrelevance of evidence)
DR is (acknowledged disregard for reality as comprehensive condition of the
work)
RR is (acknowledged goal of representing reality as comprehensive condition
of the work)
A entails X + IT + IE + DR
B entails X + T + E + RR
therefore
A =/= B
A is not equal to B
The purposes, processes, and content of writing fiction differ to those of
writing history. Two common entailments to not create an equality between
fiction and history because the other entailments differ.
Before wrapping this up, I'll address two issues.
In your last post, you wrote:
--snip--
in logical terms: "if A = X and B entails X (having been stated separately)
it follows that A entails X."
--snip--
This is also incorrect.
The correct syllogism would be:
If A = X and B entails X, then B entails A.
The equivalent syllogism would be
If X = A and B entails X then B entails A.
But this is only true if A = X, that is, if they are the same.
This is not your original syllogism. Your original claim was
A entails X and B entails X, therefore A = B.
There is a second problem. The original syllogism did not state that
entailment X (created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to
make sense of) is the ONLY entailment of either.
If you parse your original sentence in a specific way, then you are saying
that A = B >>with<< the "claim that it is based on what happened." If you
want to sort out all those added entailments carefully, you have to
acknowledge that this involves more than a single WITH.
Those other entailments of purpose, process, and content are the stuff of
history.
Now I do not and never did claim that an historian records as a video camera
might record.
If one were able to do so, which is not the case, it would not be history.
History requires creation, composition, sorting, and arrangement along with
all those other entailments I describe and more besides.
But evidence has something to do with it. Victor mentioned the Holocaust.
What do we see when we look at those dead bodies piled up like raked leaves
in the films of liberated camps? What do we see when we look at those
walking skeletons in their threadbare, striped uniforms? Did something
"happen" here? When we argue that something "happened" here, it is merely a
"claim." When an historian states that this was a death camp, that crimes
took place here, is this nothing more than a fiction "with the claim that it
is based on what happened".
I mentioned the invasion of Iraq the issue of civilian deaths. Again,
something "happened"
here. At least the World Health Organization thinks so, and so do the
editors and reviewers at Nature. Is this merely a "claim"? In my view a
"claim" in which history and fiction got confused took place when George W.
Bush and Dick Cheney claimed that the Iraqis "helped Al Quaida destroy the
World Trade Center." When everyone realized that Hussein and bin Laden
weren't on speaking terms, they changed the story to "weapons of mass
destruction." As head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission, Hans Blix sought evidence for this claim and found
none.
The reason I bring these examples up again is that it seems to me you have
avoided addressing examples that make it difficult to hold the position that
history is fiction. Few of us on this list have been personally affected by
these incidents in a direct way that we can directly attribute to either the
Holocaust or the invasion of Iraq. Surely there are some who have been, but
these must be few of the 1400 or so subscribers.
By direct, I mean, there we were, we witnessed it, what we witnessed or what
happened required us to respond in some way comparable to an affordance. So
what are we to make of these examples? Those films? The global dismay and
turbulence arising from the invasion? Perhaps it's only just a story -- I
mean something happened, sure, but we never really met those people who
vanished in either event, so how do we know that either event actually took
place? All most of us know about the invasion or the Holocaust comes from
accounts that other people have assembled. These accounts are imperfect,
often inconsistent, and generally based on evidence that in many cases is
not first hand. Is this "fiction"?
History involves evidence and facts imperfectly understood and always
interpreted through a personal framework. The assertion of history is that
history involves things that happened, no matter how imperfectly we
understand or report those happenings. History involves a specific kind of
claim: a truth claim. I'd argue that there is a difference between this
imperfect and never fully reliable truth and fiction. It is a truth that we
never fully know and a truth that we understand differently with every new
interpretation, and it is nevertheless different to fiction.
This is far from design research. I answered because you asked.
Yours,
Ken
--
Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
>you say, quoting me:
>>Your concluding "if" takes the form of an incorrect syllogism: "if
>>fiction
>is created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to make
>sense of, as i suggested, history is fiction with the claim that it is
>based on what happened."<
>
>in logical terms: "if A = X and B entails X (having been stated
>separately) it follows that A entails X." if you consider this to be
>an incorrect syllogism then i have no understanding of your logic.
>
>could your opposition to what we have been discussing be explained in
>terms of incompatible logics?
[in response to:]
Ken Friedman wrote:
>Your concluding "if" takes the form of an incorrect syllogism: "if
>fiction is created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to
>make sense of, as i suggested, history is fiction with the claim that
>it is based on what happened."
>
>It is true that fiction is "created, composed, sorted out and
>rearranged for others to make sense of." It is false that everything
>"created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to make sense
>of" is fiction. That's like saying, "if grass is green and my cousin's
>car is green, my cousin's car is grass." Or, as John Z.
>Langrish (2000) used this kind of false syllogism in the title of a
>memorable article in which he noted that even though a fork is made of
>steel and a battleship made of steel, a fork is not a battleship.
>Sharing a common property does not make fiction and history the same thing.
[in response to:]
Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
>if fiction is created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others
>to make sense of, as i suggested, history is fiction with the claim
>that it is based on what happened. their representational truth is not
accessible.
Linguistic appendices:
Fiction defined by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:
Etymology: Middle English ficcioun, from Middle French fiction, from Latin
fiction-, fictio act of fashioning, fiction, from fingere to shape, fashion,
feign -- more at DOUGH -- 1 a :
something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically : an invented
story b : fictitious literature (as novels or short stories) c : a work of
fiction; especially : NOVEL 2 a : an assumption of a possibility as a fact
irrespective of the question of its truth <a legal fiction> b : a useful
illusion or pretense
3 : the action of feigning or of creating with the imagination
History defined by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:
Etymology: Latin historia, from Greek, inquiry, history, from histOr, istOr
knowing, learned; akin to Greek eidenai to know -- more at WIT 1 :
TALE, STORY 2 a : a chronological record of significant events (as affecting
a nation or
institution) often including an explanation of their causes b : a treatise
presenting systematically related natural phenomena c : an account of a
patient's medical background d : an established record <a prisoner with a
history of
violence> 3 : a branch of knowledge that records
and explains past events <medieval history> 4 a :
events that form the subject matter of a history b : events of the past c :
one that is finished or done for <the winning streak was history> <you're
history> d : previous treatment, handling, or experience (as of a metal)
Fiction defined by the Oxford English Dictionary:
Etymology: a. Fr. fiction (= Pr. fiction, ficxio, Sp. ficcion), ad. L.
ficti{omac}n-em, n. of action f. fing{ebreve}re to fashion or form: see
FEIGN.]
1. a. The action of fashioning or imitating. Obs.
b. Arbitrary invention. c. concr. That which is fashioned or framed; a
device, a fabric. 2.
Feigning, counterfeiting; deceit, dissimulation, pretence. Obs. 3. a. The
action of 'feigning' or inventing imaginary incidents, existences, states of
things, etc., whether for the purpose of deception or otherwise. (The
reproachful sense [= 'fabrication'] is merely contextual.) b. That which, or
something that, is imaginatively invented; feigned existence, event, or
state of things; invention as opposed to fact. c. A statement or narrative
proceeding from mere invention; such statements collectively. 4. a.
The species of literature which is concerned with the narration of imaginary
events and the portraiture of imaginary characters; fictitious composition.
Now usually, prose novels and stories collectively; the composition of works
of this class. b. A work of fiction; a novel or tale. Now chiefly in
depreciatory use; cf. 3b. 5.
A supposition known to be at variance with fact, but conventionally accepted
for some reason of practical convenience, conformity with traditional usage,
decorum, or the like. a. in Law. Chiefly applied to those feigned
statements of fact which the practice of the courts authorized to be alleged
by a plaintiff in order to bring his case within the scope of the law or the
jurisdiction of the court, and which the defendant was not allowed to
disprove. Fictions of this kind are now almost obsolete in England, the
objects which they were designed to serve having been for the most part
attained by the amendment of the law. b. gen. (chiefly transf.) 6. Comb., as
fiction-character, -mint, -monger, -writer, -writing. Hence {sm}fiction v.
trans.
and intr. To feign; to fictionize; to admit of being fictionized. rare.
{sm}fictioned ppl. a.
History defined by the Oxford English Dictionary:
Etymology: [ad. L. historia narrative of past events, account, tale, story,
a. Gr. a learning or knowing by inquiry, an account of one's inquiries,
narrative, history, f. - knowing, learned, wise man, judge, f. - to know.
(The form histoire was from F.) Cf. STORY, an aphetic form of history.]
1. A relation of incidents (in early use, either true or imaginary; later
only of those professedly true); a narrative, tale, story. Obs.
(exc. as applied to a story or tale so long and full of detail, as to
resemble a history in sense
2.) 2. spec. A written narrative constituting a continuous methodical
record, in order of time, of important or public events, esp. those
connected with a particular country, people, individual, etc. Chronicles,
annals, are simpler or more rudimentary forms of history, in which the
events of each year, or other limited period, are recorded before passing on
to those of the next year or period, the year or period being the primary
division; whereas in a history, strictly so called, each movement, action,
or chain of events is dealt with as a whole, and pursued to its natural
termination, or to a convenient halting-point, without regard to these
divisions of time. -- drum-and-trumpet history, a contemptuous term for a
history that gives undue prominence to battles and wars. 3. (Without a or
pl.) That branch of knowledge which deals with past events, as recorded in
writings or otherwise ascertained; the formal record of the past, esp.
of human affairs or actions; the study of the formation and growth of
communities and nations.
In this sense often divided, for practical convenience, into Ancient and
Modern, or Ancient, Mediæval, and Modern History. These have no very
definite chronological limits; but Ancient History is usually reckoned as
ending with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in A.D. 476.
Mediæval, when separated from Modern History, is usually brought down to the
period of the Oceanic discoveries in the 15th c. 'Ancient History' is also
humorously used in the sense of 'matters which are out of date, or which no
longer form part of practical politics', and colloq. of comparatively recent
events which are regarded as nevertheless far back in a person's experience.
The Muse of History, Clio, one of the Nine Muses, represented as the
patroness of History; also often put for a personification of History. 4.
transf. {dag}a. A series of events (of which the story is or may be told).
Obs. b. The whole train of events connected with a particular country,
society, person, thing, etc., and forming the subject of his or its history
(in sense 2); course of existence or life, career. Also in pregnant sense,
An eventful career; a course of existence worthy of record. (See also
LIFE-HISTORY.) c. (Without a or pl.) The aggregate of past events in
general; the course of events or human affairs. to make history: to
influence or guide the course of history; also, to do something spectacular
or worthy of remembrance (see history-maker, -making, sense 9). 5. A
systematic account (without reference to
time) of a set of natural phenomena, as those connected with a country, some
division of nature or group of natural objects, a species of animals or
plants, etc. Now rare, exc. in NATURAL HISTORY. [In this sense following the
similar use of -- by Aristotle and other Greek writers, and
of historia by Pliny.] 6. {dag}a. A story
represented dramatically, a drama. Obs. b.
spec. A drama representing historical events, a historical play. 7. A
pictorial representation of an event or series of incidents; in 18th c. a
historical picture. ¶8. Eccl. = L. historia,
liturgically applied (a) to a series of
lessons from Scripture, named from the first
words of the Respond to the first lesson; (b)
to the general order of a particular Office.
Misunderstood and erroneously explained in Rock Ch. of Fathers IV. xii. 124:
see Proctor & Wordsworth Sarum Breviary, Index to Fasc. 1, 11.
9. attrib. and Comb., as history-master, -mill, -monger, paper, -play,
-professor, -wise, writer; {dag}history faith, 'historical' faith (see
HISTORICAL 2); history-maker, (a) a writer of a history; (b) one who 'makes
history', i.e.
performs important actions which shape the course of history; so
history-making a. and vbl. n.; history-painter, one who paints 'histories'
(sense 7); so history-painting, history-piece.
|
