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> Frank Kermode, in his famous book The Sense of an Ending, elaborated on Cohn’s masterwork by suggesting that actually it’s very common for all of us – especia
by dlkf 7y ago
> Frank Kermode, in his famous book The Sense of an Ending, elaborated on Cohn’s masterwork by suggesting that actually it’s very common for all of us – especially artists – to feel that we live at the end of times, and that our own demise means all the more to us because we’re not simply dying in the middle of the plot, in medias res. Our lives take on significance because as we decline we notice our society is declining all around us. It’s part of a yearning for narrative significance. As Kermode said, no one can hear a clock saying, as it does, tick tick. What we hear is tick tock. A beginning and an end. We impose this order.
- Ian McEwan
- ppod 7y agoI totally agree with this point, but there is an unavoidable anthropic counterargument, which is for the people who do in fact live in some kind of end times, this is exactly how it will seem to them too. We can't just rely on induction, you still have to at least attempt the deductive due diligence.
- K2L8M11N2 7y agohttp://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/16088/ http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/16088/
- carapace 7y ago> We can't just rely on induction, you still have to at least attempt the deductive due diligence. Thank you. This: > Arthur: All my life I've had this strange feeling that there's something big and sinister going on in the world. > Slartibartfast: No, that's perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe gets that. ...isn't a logical argument against the (fictional) fact that Arthur's home planet did explode.