On the cross between philosophy and poetry: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Philosophy of the Arts » On the cross between philosophy and poetry » On the cross between philosophy and poetry

On the cross between philosophy and poetry
Poetry and philosophical value; poetic philosophy.

On the cross between philosophy and poetry

Publius
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 16, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 2

Posted 04/16/08 - 02:56 PM: Subject: On the cross between philosophy and poetry	#1
Can poetry have real philosophical value? I am considering writing my philosophical ideas through the medium of poetry. Do you find this to be a worthy endeavor? I understand the idea that poetry does not sustain the "rigour" that cold, calculative philosophical papers do, but is this really necessary? People discuss the philosophical nature of Bob Dylan's writings and music all the time; entire books have been devoted to the subject. Even so, Bob Dylan has never (to my mind) written a stern essay on the tenets of modern epistemology, though many consider his poetry and ideas philosophical in nature. Other than Xenophanes and Parminedes, are there any examples of philosophers who discussed their ideas with poetic language? If the goal of philosophy is to spark intellectual thought and stir the mind's ability to think about ideas, provoking metacognition, etc., then I personally find poetry well-suited to perform the job of lending discourse on philosophical topics. Any thoughts?

jaoman
On the Road...

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Mar 13, 2004
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Total Topics: 84
Total Posts: 1312

Posted 04/16/08 - 03:14 PM:	#2
Publius wrote: Other than Xenophanes and Parminedes, are there any examples of philosophers who discussed their ideas with poetic language? Try Shakespeare. In fact, every great writer is a philosopher. Even more so than every philosopher is a great writer. It's the mandate to having your work appreciated by intelligent people.
_____________________ "With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

Mike H
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jun 05, 2007
Total Topics: 3
Total Posts: 71

Posted 04/16/08 - 11:59 PM:	#3
Nietzsche writes in a poetic style - though he was partly just trying to make his writing hard to understand. But he thought that reason alone was not enough to convince people (truth is relative anyway) - you have to "seduce" them to your position. The cold, calculating style of modern philosophers assumes we are all creatures of pure reason, but theres more to philosophy than that - namely, the values we live by, which are determined by our passions. You can't argue with a passion, you have to express it an opposing one. And thats what music and poetry are well suited for. There's no reason they can't be philosophical - in fact they can be more philosophical than most of what philosophers do, since they can express a fundamental approach towards life more effectively than analytic philosophy.

quickly
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 29, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 70

Posted 04/17/08 - 04:15 PM:	#4
Well, how about Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, Lacan? I always found the closing paragraph of "Structure, Sign and Play" particularly intriguing: For my part, although these two interpretations must acknowledge and accentuate their difference and define their irreducibility, I do not believe that today there is any question of choosing-in the first place because here we are in a region (let's say, provisionally, a region of historicity) where the category of choice seems particularly trivial; and in the second, because we must first try to conceive of the common ground, and the difference of this irreducible difference. Here there is a sort of question, call it historical, of which we are only glimpsing today the conception, the formation, the gestation, the labor. I employ these words, I admit, with a glance toward the business of childbearing-but also with a glance toward those who, in a company from which I do not exclude myself, turn their eyes away in the face of the as yet unnameable which is proclaiming itself and which can do so, as is necessary whenever a birth is in the offing, only under the species of the non-species, in the formless, mute, infant, and terrifying form of monstrosity.
_____________________ "Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

unenlightened
Mysteriosopher

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Aug 10, 2007
Location: Wales
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 813

Posted 04/20/08 - 11:16 AM:	#5
quickly wrote: Well, how about Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, Lacan? I always found the closing paragraph of "Structure, Sign and Play" particularly intriguing: Compare with Yeats: Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
_____________________ The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

quickly
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 29, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 70

Posted 04/20/08 - 02:03 PM:	#6
Of course, you forgot the most important part: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." And the fact that both are heavily steeped in their respective Nietzsche's. Could Yeat's be railing against the same humanism and surety Derrida is? Yeat's poem seems to get at the heart of Derrida's project (or Derrida at the center of Yeat's?) here; but Yeat's beast would be the subsistution of center for center (anarchy for ontotheology), and concieving of a system or structure of humanism outside of the rocking crade or the beast is all contanied within the foundations of the cradle. ...no longer turned toward the origin, [this interpretation] affirms freeplay and tries to pass beyond man and humanism, the name man being the name of that being who, throughout the history of metaphysics or of ontotheology-in other words, through the history of all of his history-has dreamed of full presence, the reassuring foundation, the origin and the end of the game. [EDIT: I've always found the "stony sleep" perplexing. The centuries are sleeping, unmoving, stoic and plastic, before the introduction of the cradle? Before Christiantiy? Before the guiding eschatology provided by Christian history? But why then vexed to nightmares, if not to imply the eschatology of Christianity, guiding history, is both the necessary force of movement, while also being the repression of desire, of play (to use Derrida's words), or of a bivalent progress and violence occuring by the imposition of the crade? I have no idea.] Edited by quickly on 04/20/08 - 02:14 PM
_____________________ "Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

quickly
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 29, 2007
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 70

Posted 04/20/08 - 02:21 PM:	#7
Here's another question: why does poststructuralism, onto-political monisms, and postmodernism generally, find such heavy support in literature? Is the literature particularly receptive to their ideas, because it contains some element continually breaking down, some "Truth" which philosophy has suppressed? Or have these modern philosophical movements merely adapted themselves well to breaking down the histories and meanigns unique to each text?
_____________________ "Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

unenlightened
Mysteriosopher

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Aug 10, 2007
Location: Wales
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 813

Posted 04/21/08 - 11:46 AM:	#8
quickly wrote: Here's another question: why does poststructuralism, onto-political monisms, and postmodernism generally, find such heavy support in literature? Is the literature particularly receptive to their ideas, because it contains some element continually breaking down, some "Truth" which philosophy has suppressed? Or have these modern philosophical movements merely adapted themselves well to breaking down the histories and meanigns unique to each text? Ask a hard question, why don't you. Fools seldom differ? I think philosophy of late has suppressed speculation, which is the realm of literature entire. Postmodernism probably doesn't even recognise a boundary between philosophy and literature - but that is purely speculative on my part. meanigns: signs with attitude. I had assumed the sphinx sleeping 2 millenia before Christ, and 2 millenia after... a new consciousness could one hope?
_____________________ The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Publius
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 16, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 2

Posted 04/28/08 - 02:18 PM:	#9
> In fact, every great writer is a philosopher. Well, what do you mean by this? Is every great writer also a philosopher? Do you truly mean to say such a thing? Suppose my favorite New York Times columnist just happens to be a good writer; does this make him a philosopher? Personally, I think not, but I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on this. If I am correct, then, the consensus view here is that poetry can be deeply philosophical in nature, and that good poetry accomplishes this. I suppose I could quote Dylan Thoams, "A great poem is a contribution to reality." Philosophy is a set of contributions to reality and life; deductively speaking, this means poetry is philosophy, or are very similar, no? Now, the question becomes, what makes great poetry? If one waits for the muse to come, thus not requiring revision of one's works, does this make the poetry any better than a constantly revised poem? If one revises a philosophical poem from its original inspiration, does it become less applicable as either poem or philosophy? If any of you have written poetry, how do you know when it is the stuff of greatness? I tend to believe that if you revise a work of art, such as a poem, painting, or song, it may become too methodical, and thus less artistic and inspirational. Thank you all for continuing the conversation. It means very much to me.

jdrw
definitely ~d1

Usergroup: Moderators
Joined: Apr 11, 2004
Location: Pennsylvania
Total Topics: 11
Total Posts: 1490

Posted 04/28/08 - 04:47 PM:	#10
Publius wrote: Other than Xenophanes and Parminedes, are there any examples of philosophers who discussed their ideas with poetic language? If the goal of philosophy is to spark intellectual thought and stir the mind's ability to think about ideas, provoking metacognition, etc., then I personally find poetry well-suited to perform the job of lending discourse on philosophical topics. Any thoughts? Nietzsche strikes me as a very poetic writer. Any maybe Kierkegaard? And of course the existentialists in general seem to have expressed their ideas in literature as much as in expository essay. I'd suspect that such poetry as you propose would be criticized by philosophers as too vague or ambiguous, and by literati as too self-consciously philosophical. The point of expository philosophical writing is to clearly set forth and explain something that is of interest in philosophy. But I think that poetic language also can be used to express insights not so readily expressible in straightforward prose. Well constructed metaphor and analogy allow us insights into things that are not so readily perceived otherwise. They show us certain ways that things and people and events are alike that straightforward prose is unable to show. They can reveal relationships in ways not so readily achievable in prose. Also, most importantly, the poem itself is an experience, a performance that has an aesthetic value in addition to--or even more centrally of interest than--the cognitive content. Good luck. jd Edited by jdrw on 04/28/08 - 04:53 PM
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

You don't have permission to post.

Please login or register.