We are used to thinking that, like hope, wishful thinking is a sweet lie, whereas reality, no matter how stark, is an actuality, and therefore it must be true.
Yet I’ve been insisting, inspired by the famous George Bernard Shaw quip, that only fiction can be true, and based on that insistence, wishful thinking, being a form of creative fiction, must be true by that definition.
Pushing this argument still further, is it then possible that the world is being wrong about itself, in believing that actuality is true just because it is. Wittgenstein says, “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.” But he does not actually say that was der Fall ist is true. There is no intrinsic judgment on veracity in a statement of fact.
All this rather confusing discussion boils down to the simple assertion that the world must be true just because it is God’s Creation, within the Creation itself. By the same token, our fantasy (wishful thinking is a part of it) is true just because it is our creation, within its own parameters. But it does not follow from such identification that whatever happens must be true as well. The fact that the world (Die Welt) is true does not automatically make true everything (alles, was der Fall ist) that constitutes it. For even based on basic logic, we know that lies exist and are therefore parts, that is, “facts,” of the world. Lies start and proliferate from where separate creations clash, and they become lies precisely by trying to assert their internal truths externally, rather than keeping them within, where they are indeed true.
Yet I’ve been insisting, inspired by the famous George Bernard Shaw quip, that only fiction can be true, and based on that insistence, wishful thinking, being a form of creative fiction, must be true by that definition.
Pushing this argument still further, is it then possible that the world is being wrong about itself, in believing that actuality is true just because it is. Wittgenstein says, “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.” But he does not actually say that was der Fall ist is true. There is no intrinsic judgment on veracity in a statement of fact.
All this rather confusing discussion boils down to the simple assertion that the world must be true just because it is God’s Creation, within the Creation itself. By the same token, our fantasy (wishful thinking is a part of it) is true just because it is our creation, within its own parameters. But it does not follow from such identification that whatever happens must be true as well. The fact that the world (Die Welt) is true does not automatically make true everything (alles, was der Fall ist) that constitutes it. For even based on basic logic, we know that lies exist and are therefore parts, that is, “facts,” of the world. Lies start and proliferate from where separate creations clash, and they become lies precisely by trying to assert their internal truths externally, rather than keeping them within, where they are indeed true.
No comments:
Post a Comment