Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 13, No. 515.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: "Fotis Jannidis" <Fotis.Jannidis@lrz.uni- (40)
muenchen.de>
Subject: Re: 13.0512 open questions in the disciplines
[2] From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com> (17)
Subject: Older and Better Conjecture
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 20:51:21 +0000
From: "Fotis Jannidis" <Fotis.Jannidis@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Subject: Re: 13.0512 open questions in the disciplines
> Charles Faulhaber:
> I took Matsuba's list somewhat differently--namely, as an attempt to show
> that it is inherently impossible to provide a list of unsolved questions
> in the study of literature because of the very nature of the
> discipline. None of the questions that he listed can be "solved", in the
> sense that one can solve a problem in the sciences.
I agree: 'solution' is too definitive. But the discipline of literary
studies has some key
concepts like "author", "reader", "text", "interpretation", "sign". Each of
these concepts
has a history which adds typical arguments and counter arguments to it. Open
questions would be the arguments and counter arguments concerning one of these
concepts which are not resolved in the eyes of the contemporary humanists.
If you take the concept 'author' as an example: the argument against the
'intentional
fallacy' was largely based on a very special model of literary
communication which most
people would have difficulties to share nowadays, but it also contains the
argument, that
literary texts are formulated in language and language is public, so there
is no need to
refer to inaccessible entities like 'intention'. Every proposal to use the
author concept
nonetheless has to have some argument against this and needs to model the
relation
between public language and private intention. For some time now the
double verdict
against the author concept (next to Wimsatt, Beardsley also Barthes and a
probably
misunderstood Foucault) seems to be questioned from different sides, some
of them are
using computers to aid there arguments like John Burrows or Colin Martindale.
So I do think that there are open questions and there are no definitive
solutions - but
there are also a growing number of elements and aspects which every
proposal for a
solution has to include, because the problem has been solved far enough to
see that
these aspects are part of the problem.
Fotis Jannidis
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 20:51:53 +0000
From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Older and Better Conjecture
From: Osher Doctorow <mailto:osher@ix.netcom.com>osher@ix.netcom.com,
3-25-00, 10:17PM
Dear Colleagues:
My wife, Marleen, tells me that my conjecture is wrong for the humanities,
that is to say, I am wrong in thinking that the older universities are
better for the humanities. Others have also indicated something like
this. Since my wife is almost always correct, I withdraw my conjecture for
the humanities, although I retain it for mathematics and
physics. Marleen's argument is quite interesting in the direction of new
conjectures. According to her, universities which are better in physical
sciences often have less money and energy available for non-physical
sciences. This is some sort of "conservation of money" idea, it seems to
me. It reminds me of the fact that musical, artistic, and even scientific
geniuses often have arisen in "insane societies". Perhaps there is
"conservation of sanity"? Of course, there are other trends to think about
as well.
Yours,
Osher
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