http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/05/27/493/ A working notebook Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:19:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/05/27/493/#comment-1579 Mon, 28 May 2007 01:32:35 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/05/27/493/#comment-1579 Bonsoir Colonel, I'll accept that, and am will accept that I've misread Lovecraft. On the one hand, I think Davidson provides arguments for why Lovecraft can not succeed at one sense of Lovecraft's aim, to depict an absolutely other or to depict a radical revision of beliefs. At best Lovecraft can gesture at it (a sort of finger pointing at the moon kind of thing). In that case, Lovecraft can at best succeed at other tasks which may have been incidental to his aim - I think his "sense of wonder" bit is one of the better things he does, like in the bit in the Kadath story where the wonder of Carter's dream city is just a particular gloss on the actual world. (There are of course political problems with Lovecraft, but part of the exercise of this post was to take what I've been reading lately, ostensibly unrelated stuff, and see if I could put them together beyond mutual occupation of a list of my recent reading.) On the other hand, I think one could read Lovecraft and Quine as having a sort of similar sensibility about irrationality of beliefs - there being no philosophically interesting/profound grounds for belief systems (physical objects being epistemologically like homeric gods). That move only works I think if one applies Quine's relativizing/deflationary move to his criteria of evaluation (effectiveness, predictability, etc). I think Davidson cuts the other way, though - his article is an attack on conceptual relativism, among other things. take care, Nate Bonsoir Colonel,
I’ll accept that, and am will accept that I’ve misread Lovecraft. On the one hand, I think Davidson provides arguments for why Lovecraft can not succeed at one sense of Lovecraft’s aim, to depict an absolutely other or to depict a radical revision of beliefs. At best Lovecraft can gesture at it (a sort of finger pointing at the moon kind of thing). In that case, Lovecraft can at best succeed at other tasks which may have been incidental to his aim - I think his “sense of wonder” bit is one of the better things he does, like in the bit in the Kadath story where the wonder of Carter’s dream city is just a particular gloss on the actual world. (There are of course political problems with Lovecraft, but part of the exercise of this post was to take what I’ve been reading lately, ostensibly unrelated stuff, and see if I could put them together beyond mutual occupation of a list of my recent reading.) On the other hand, I think one could read Lovecraft and Quine as having a sort of similar sensibility about irrationality of beliefs - there being no philosophically interesting/profound grounds for belief systems (physical objects being epistemologically like homeric gods). That move only works I think if one applies Quine’s relativizing/deflationary move to his criteria of evaluation (effectiveness, predictability, etc). I think Davidson cuts the other way, though - his article is an attack on conceptual relativism, among other things.
take care,
Nate

]]> http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/05/27/493/#comment-1578 Mon, 28 May 2007 00:50:59 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/05/27/493/#comment-1578 B-b-but aren't lovecraft stories aiming to <i>confirm</i> a (irrational) belief system? By (faintly ironically) literalising all the figurative language ("amphibious" for example) of the belief system, in order to overcome its vulnerability to a (prized and despised) rationality? Make its irrationality - its basis in uncontrolled fear - its virtue rather than a vulnerability? B-b-but aren’t lovecraft stories aiming to confirm a (irrational) belief system? By (faintly ironically) literalising all the figurative language (”amphibious” for example) of the belief system, in order to overcome its vulnerability to a (prized and despised) rationality? Make its irrationality - its basis in uncontrolled fear - its virtue rather than a vulnerability?

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