Fiction’s insights are implicit, philosophy’s are explicit. In fiction aiming at a reasonable-level of realisim, the author is aiming at working out a realistic scenario.

They are usually trying to highlight certain features of that scenario, and because of this, it is designed for the reader to draw certain conclusions about it (e.g. about the nature of NGOs).

But what the author explicitly specifies is the scenario – the conclusions and, in particular, the model of why those conclusions are the case, is left somewhat implicit.

We are pretty good at evaluating concrete descriptions of scenarios, which helps the author to construct a reasonably realistic scenario.

Philosophers, on the other hand, tend to work on the level of general models: general descriptions that are abstracted away from specific scenarios. Descriptions that explicitly talk about why certain things are the case, /in general/.

These are harder for us to evaluate. And it is harder for us to incorporate nauances within models than within stories.

I’m not trying to say that stories “are better”. I think that’s why there is value to be had in both, and personally, I’m more interested in trying to draw the general, explicit lessons – the kind of thing philsophy is more targed at.

Just my 2 cents…

The advice at the link below may be of benefit for certain other writers at this blog:

http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/saving_the_world.html

Of course, they didn’t measure whether this is the most efficient way to gain such understanding. It’s possible that one could gain it as easily by reading psychology journals.

Neither the fiction nor the journals are likely to contain genuine insights – although there will certainly be exceptions, the vast majority of both will consist of trash and nonsense.

But the trash and nonsense embedded in the fiction is far more likely to take root in your mind than the trash and nonsense in the journals.

First. Sartre published both works of literature and works of philosophy. Does anyone know why he chose both forms? Surely not just to reach more people?

Second. Many of the philosophers of the past had the notion that the written word “told” the brain what to think and that important ideas should be understood (and not just read) and therefore the best way was to explain between the lines. This goes well with the idea that literature surely can explain some extra quality.

Is there not error, bias, and folly in every
endeavor to which the human mind has turned?

Was Richard III as evil as Shakespeare wrote
him? Did witches prophesy Macbeth’s rise and
fall? How many reports of development
economists are any more anchored in verifiable
observation than Macbeth’s of Banquo’s ghost?
More than one, perhaps? More than one on each
of the seven sides of an issue? If there are
seven grant making agencies with competing
agendas, who here would bet against it?

Literature never of itself brought us as much
science as the boiling point of water.
But while cummings proclaimed:

“when serpents bargain for the right to squirm. . .

“and march denounces april as a saboteur

“then we’ll believe in that incredible
unanimal mankind (and not until)”

how much philosophy, economics, psychology
and the rest of science is suited only to
a unending variety of “unanimal” mankinds?

“Sean, are you sure Plato failed to understand Homer’s true appeal?

Remember, the famous “ancient quarrel” quote is from Republic, and has a political context. Homer is subversive because he speaks the truth about human affairs, in a way that calls into question the Noble Lie. Also, many of Socrates’s criticisms of Poetry can also be applied to Plato’s Republic quite easily, so it would be strange to ascribe those views to Plato himself.”

With regard to Homer’s “appeal,” I probably worded that wrongly. I should have said something like “value” instead. What I was getting at was that Plato had a point that literature can lie, and still be convincing. Plato’s reasons for dismissing Homer were wrong (at least for me, because I don’t share the philosophical commitments in that text).

I agree that the view shouldn’t necessarily be ascribed to Plato–but rather to Socrates in that specific text. In fact, the discussions he has of art throughout his writings are often conflicting.