WHAT DOES POETRY DO TO US?
Journal Title: Social Affairs - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 5
Abstract
The paper seeks to fnd an alternative approach to engaging with philosophy. Given that the pursuit of philosophy from ancient times has been the comprehension of truth, it attempts to look for possibilities in alternative ways of truth comprehension through poetry. The paper is devoted to the analysis of the epistemic interpretation of a particular kind of poetry as proposed by Martin Heidegger. It strongly argues for the epistemic validity of the knowledge that is arrived at through poetry of a kind, and in the process raises questions about analytical accounts of truth given in ancient philosophy wherein truth seems to be a propositional idea and the epistemic categories and methods used in these cases are mostly logical tools or empirical scientifc methods. Thus the paper attempts to argue for the capacity of poetical discourse to be a means of philosophical truth, and to clarify the special nature of such poetry, as opposed to poetic discourse in general. The frst task will be to clarify the kind of truth poetry makes manifest, and this will include differentiating poetic truth from propositional truth, and defning it in terms of the Heideggerean notion of aletheia (unhiddenness of Being). An attempt will be made to look at Heidegger’s notion of truth and how it is different from the propositional idea of truth, and to defend that idea of truth in epistemology. A phenomenological hermeneutical and critical method will be employed in this exercise.
Authors and Affiliations
Puja Ghosh
Keywords
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