Dear Klaus,
While all fiction is invented, not all inventions are fiction.
Epistemological claims of this sort trouble me. They lead to the
problem of infinite regress. They also raise a problem. If everything
is fiction or everything is invented solely by language, it is
difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to make statements in the "is"
form or to argue for any view as against any other. If the world we
know is fiction, how can any position be better, more reasonable or
responsible than any other?
Perhaps I'm mistaken on this -- that is, wrong or incorrect or
inadequate, not simply adopting a different view -- but I'd argue
that there is a world, that some things in the world are indeed
taking place, and that these events and activities influence the
lives of human beings. We invent our lives and create the positions
and actions we take, but this does not make our positions, lives, or
actions fictional in their consequences.
Yours,
Ken
--
Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
If fiction is what is created by an act of invention -- as my
dictionary suggest, i'd argue more generally
THE WORLD WE KNOW IS FICTION
--
Merriam-Webster's defines "fiction" as:
"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."
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