Publication Forum?

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Ozymandias
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Publication Forum?

Post by Ozymandias »

I'm new to this site and I hate to be that guy who comes in with all his terrible ideas trying to change the whole thing, but I have an idea for the site I think is worthy of consideration:

I don't know if others will agree with me on this, but I think we could use a forum within the category of "community and off- topic" that we would use to share and give feedback on anything we create. So a story, article, essay, just a big idea, etc. For example, at the moment I'm working on a little philosophical short story (no guarantees I'm actually going to ultimately post if, as I may not like it, but regardless-) and it would be convenient to have a dedicated section of the site to post it on, where those interested would read it and give feedback or build on the ideas. It's not inherently argumentative, nor is it really off-topic, so I feel as though a dedicated area of the site for the type of post would be nice. Sure, my request is mostly a matter of naming things and organizing things, and I could post it in Philosopher's Lounge; but for one thing, new members don't get post counts in that forum and this kind of posting would be worthy of that, and for another thing, I get the sense that when we are looking for the more direct idea- discussion format, we go to the argumentative forums- even though they're for argumentation about ideas, rather than sharing our own work. Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope we can have a dedicated forum, or I at least be directed to where I should make this type of post if I've simply been foolish and overlooked it.

-Ozy
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by -1- »

Ozy, I don't know how this site works; but if your story makes a point, then it could be filed under any one of the APPLICABLE forums. If it does not make a point, and it's in fact a work of literary merit only, not of philosophical merit, then I'd say your only choice is Lounge. If it makes several points in different areas of philosophical enquiry, especially if it's a single idea in the story that affects several different angles of philosophy, then I'd suggest of posting it in the Metaphysics forum.

Once you have twenty different forum posts approved, it's hard to get your posts deleted. You need to violate some posting rules to get your post deleted. Please try by checking the posted "forum posting rules" or whatever it's called, to see if your paper / short story indeed would violate some of the rules. Maybe it violates none. In that case publish it in the most pertinent forum to its topic, and see what happens.
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Ozymandias
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Ozymandias »

I'm not so worried about having it deleted, I'm just wanting a more appropriate place to post it. Regarding its "point", it has numerous points but like any literary work you can interpret it however you want, and look at whatever aspects you want. Lounge is where I'd post it otherwise, I'm just suggesting a dedicated forum for sharing things like this.
Josefina1110
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Josefina1110 »

Maybe you are working on something that would make a good blog. So you make it a blog and be a guest blogger where you can find it available. Or make a new topic out of it and post it on the appropriate forum.
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Ozymandias
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Ozymandias »

Josefina1110 wrote:Maybe you are working on something that would make a good blog. So you make it a blog and be a guest blogger where you can find it available. Or make a new topic out of it and post it on the appropriate forum.
Well that's the problem, I don't believe there is an exactly appropriate forum for sharing our own written works. They don't belong in any of the argumentative forums because sharing something does not necessarily pose an argument, question, or idea.
Josefina1110
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Josefina1110 »

Maybe you need to write a book even just less than 50 pages and publish it and get Scott's attention to make it Book of the Day. That is a good way to share your opinions and ideas or whatever you want to say. Are you planning to write a recipe? Nobody will argue or question your recipes especially if they are original and delicious. I am just rambling here because I don't have an idea what you are talking about. Sorry.
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by -1- »

Ozymandias wrote:I'm not so worried about having it deleted, I'm just wanting a more appropriate place to post it. Regarding its "point", it has numerous points but like any literary work you can interpret it however you want, and look at whatever aspects you want. Lounge is where I'd post it otherwise, I'm just suggesting a dedicated forum for sharing things like this.
I feel your pain. However, you must consider also the following: Is one post worth the trouble of creating a dedicated forum for it? Fair to say, others may follow, but this is not guaranteed.

It is also a lot of work to reprogram a site to create yet one more forum, on the requirement of one single occurrence of need.

And lastly, this is a place of philosophy. Forum topics are mandated to deal with philosophy. Maybe if your piece has literary merit, (because you say it has no philosophical merit, it can be interpreted many different ways as it is primary a work of literary merit) then maybe you should try to place it in a forum of literary works? Which is not here, granted, but you can only have one cake and eat it too; one thing can't be both itself and not itself at the same time and in the same respect A piece can't be both not philosophy, and at the same time philosophy enough to publish in a philosophy forum. It's either literary stuff, or philosophical; your piece is not both. And you ought to be thinking about publishing it accordingly.
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Ozymandias
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Ozymandias »

-1- wrote:
Ozymandias wrote:I'm not so worried about having it deleted, I'm just wanting a more appropriate place to post it. Regarding its "point", it has numerous points but like any literary work you can interpret it however you want, and look at whatever aspects you want. Lounge is where I'd post it otherwise, I'm just suggesting a dedicated forum for sharing things like this.
I feel your pain. However, you must consider also the following: Is one post worth the trouble of creating a dedicated forum for it? Fair to say, others may follow, but this is not guaranteed.

It is also a lot of work to reprogram a site to create yet one more forum, on the requirement of one single occurrence of need.

And lastly, this is a place of philosophy. Forum topics are mandated to deal with philosophy. Maybe if your piece has literary merit, (because you say it has no philosophical merit, it can be interpreted many different ways as it is primary a work of literary merit) then maybe you should try to place it in a forum of literary works? Which is not here, granted, but you can only have one cake and eat it too; one thing can't be both itself and not itself at the same time and in the same respect A piece can't be both not philosophy, and at the same time philosophy enough to publish in a philosophy forum. It's either literary stuff, or philosophical; your piece is not both. And you ought to be thinking about publishing it accordingly.
What? What do you mean something cannot be both literary and philosophical? Either we don't agree at all about what either of those terms mean, or you have a strange view of how writing and reading works. Either way, you make a good point, it probably isn't worth a dedicated forum. Anyway, I seem to have gained no administrative attention, so they probably share your view. I'm happy to put it in lounge, but while we're on the topic, why can't something be both literary and philosophical?
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by -1- »

why can't something be both literary and philosophical

Literary products are fiction; philosophy is non-fiction.

Granted, there are non-fiction literary products. Such as essays, letters.

So I guess you are right. The two can overlap.

However, you did say in the outset, that your piece does not lend itself to arguments. The essence of philosophy is that it tackles unanswerable questions, and it lends itself to arguments between parties of opposing or non-identical views to decide whose phantasm of an answer is more valid than another's.

A lot of philosophical questions have been removed from the realm of philosophy, by science. Examples: "What holds the middle." (Answer: Gravity.) Xeno's paradox. (Answer: by calculus.) What came first: chicken or the egg. (Answer: by biological evolution.) Is lightning a weapon of an angry god to punish sinners? (Answer: by meteorology.) Is reality wrong? -- this is still philosophy.
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Ozymandias
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Ozymandias »

-1- wrote:why can't something be both literary and philosophical

Literary products are fiction; philosophy is non-fiction.

Granted, there are non-fiction literary products. Such as essays, letters.

So I guess you are right. The two can overlap.

However, you did say in the outset, that your piece does not lend itself to arguments. The essence of philosophy is that it tackles unanswerable questions, and it lends itself to arguments between parties of opposing or non-identical views to decide whose phantasm of an answer is more valid than another's.

A lot of philosophical questions have been removed from the realm of philosophy, by science. Examples: "What holds the middle." (Answer: Gravity.) Xeno's paradox. (Answer: by calculus.) What came first: chicken or the egg. (Answer: by biological evolution.) Is lightning a weapon of an angry god to punish sinners? (Answer: by meteorology.) Is reality wrong? -- this is still philosophy.
Why do you think a fictional work cannot deal with philosophical questions? For example, Orwell's Animal Farm is fictional literature, and yet it seeks (and succeeds) to clarify the de facto/ de jure political philosophy of the idea of communism. The fact that it is an analogous discussion of philosophy, rather than a direct discussion of philosophy, does not make it "not philosophy".

For another example, a semi-fictional book with a lot of insight into how relevant fiction can actually be in our lives is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. If you have not read it, it's a collection of semi-true stories from the author's time in the Vietnam war. Some of the stories, though he does not tell you which ones, are untrue or exaggerated, because it can be hard for Vietnam veterans to describe how hellish the war was without exaggerating their stories (according to O'Brien; I don't presume to personally know anything about war). The point being that something does not have to be entirely nonfictional for it to carry real philosophical weight.
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Ozymandias:
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.If you have not read it, it's a collection of semi-true stories from the author's time in the Vietnam war. Some of the stories, though he does not tell you which ones, are untrue or exaggerated, because it can be hard for Vietnam veterans to describe how hellish the war was without exaggerating their stories (according to O'Brien; I don't presume to personally know anything about war). The point being that something does not have to be entirely nonfictional for it to carry real philosophical weight.
O’Brien gets much deeper into the relationship between fact and fiction, as well as experience and memory. Although these stories take place during the war what he says is true not only of war.

Aristotle says that poetry is more philosophical than history because history deals with particulars and poetry universals.
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Ozymandias
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Ozymandias »

Fooloso4 wrote:Ozymandias:
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.If you have not read it, it's a collection of semi-true stories from the author's time in the Vietnam war. Some of the stories, though he does not tell you which ones, are untrue or exaggerated, because it can be hard for Vietnam veterans to describe how hellish the war was without exaggerating their stories (according to O'Brien; I don't presume to personally know anything about war). The point being that something does not have to be entirely nonfictional for it to carry real philosophical weight.
O’Brien gets much deeper into the relationship between fact and fiction, as well as experience and memory. Although these stories take place during the war what he says is true not only of war.

Aristotle says that poetry is more philosophical than history because history deals with particulars and poetry universals.
Yes, thanks! Literature is necessarily philosophical by nature, -1-
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by -1- »

Ozymandias wrote: Why do you think a fictional work cannot deal with philosophical questions?
A fictional work can work with philosophical questions. Much like a fictional work can work with scientific questions. The "Relativity Theory" by Albert Einstein was fiction (unsupported theory) at its time of first publication. It was also philosophy.

What I said was that literature and philosophy are in the same realm only as long as literature is in the form of an essay. And now I realize, it is only so, when literature wants to tackle a formal philosophical question in the way it can be convincing to a thinking being.

I admit art can deal with philosophical questions. Convincingly even, but not to a thinking mind, but to a feeling heart. 2001 A Space Odyssey comes to mind, or Pratchett's statement, "Religions are born in desert counties at night, because man needs to place God between himself and infinity." Art can deal with philosophical questions only in its own way. One may even argue that the part in literary fiction, whether it be a poem or novel, is still an essay form.

Literary works will never represent a formal proof or a formal argument. Which are the bead-and-butter of philosophy.

-- Updated 2017 March 4th, 2:02 pm to add the following --
Aristotle wrote:Poetry is more philosophical than history because history deals with particulars and poetry universals.
Ozymandias wrote:Yes, thanks! Literature is necessarily philosophical by nature, -1-
Ozymandias, you made that quoted claim on the strength that philosophy is a quality that can be part of some things to differing degrees.

That means, that anything can be philosophical.

That means that literary works can be philosophical to some degree or other, much like a cat's miau, a dog's bark, a tree's bark, the tongue's lark.

You are participating in the great "wash away all boundaries that delineate one word's meaning from another, let's make all words mean everything" movement.

Unless you can quantitatively measure and express the difference of how much of literature is philosophy, and how much of anything is philosophy, even in a case-by-case basis, your insistence that philosophy is in literature makes philosophy to be in everything. And without a quantification of relativity, a comparison is dangerous, for it can't be decided who is right and who is wrong: those who say, for instance, that history is more philosophy than poetry, or those who say that poetry is more philosophical than history.

I say neither is philosophy. They both deal with philosophical questions, but they themselves do not conform to the methods of inquiry of philosophy.
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Ozymandias »

Well it seems to me that, while "everything" is apparently philosophy to me, very little at all is philosophy to you. I say that deliberate and conscious thinking on a given subject is philosophy, how would you define it? Does philosophy have to have a certain level of formality to be philosophy to you? Why can an essay on the merits of love and hate be philosophy, while the Harry Potter series is not, even though it deals with the same question adequately?
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Re: Publication Forum?

Post by Fooloso4 »

-1-:
They both deal with philosophical questions, but they themselves do not conform to the methods of inquiry of philosophy.
There are no methods of inquiry of philosophy, only methods of inquiry used by philosophers, and they differ widely.

The relationship between philosophy and poetry was an important theme for Plato, but because of methods of inquiry used by anglo-american philosophers interpretation of the Platonic dialogues suffered greatly. Much was ignored as poetry, myth, and ornament. It was not until philosophers started once again looking again at the question of the relationship between philosophy and poetry in the dialogues that what was taken as something other than philosophical inquiry and doctrine began to be seen as integral to its dialogic philosophical method of inquiry.

Wittgenstein said:
-Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry.
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