What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

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neilgodfrey
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Paul the Uncertain wrote: He's young and she's gorgeous. That all sounds pretty natural to me. There are conventions about it, too. One is to vastly overestimate the lust-object's merits, while overlooking her shortcomings (for example, that she acts much as a real-life con artist behaves when snaring a mark).
You are reading a different story -- or reading into the story an alternative to the one written. We cannot just assume that the narrator (not Curtius Rufus) is exaggerating or writing something other than he really means. We have not context -- we just have to accept the story as it is on the page.

This is where we seem to differ quite often. I understand you seem to assume that an author could be meaning something other than what he is writing or there is something else behind the text etc. Yes, there may be other things behind texts, but we can never just assume that. We always need to work with the text as we have it to begin with, and then let the textual and contextual cues guide us in any other interpretation and views about what we are reading or what might be behind it. Otherwise I think we are just making stuff up for no good reason.
Paul the Uncertain wrote:
I don't believe in fortune telling.
You don't believe that some people offer to tell fortunes, or you don't believe that anybody succeeds in fortune telling more than can be achieved by natural means?

Only the former occurs on the page under scrutiny.
I don't believe in "figures" appearing as humans yet looking more than human and scaring the daylights out of people exist nor that they or anyone else can accurately predict futures such as we read is predicted of CR's life.

But that is ultimately beside the point. Even if she said something else, like "Hello, can you show me the way to the fish market?" or anything -- we would have no way of determining the historicity of the narrative.
Paul the Uncertain wrote:
But even if the tale were of the nonmiraculous kind ...
But that's where the framing came in. Pliny spun it as a real-life miracle. By itself, the story could be propaganda about how a tutelary goddess legitimized Roman administration in her region. Or it's a comment on youthful Rufus' gullibility, or what inspired him to turn his life around from young loser to mature mover and shaker.
We can't say that it could be any of those things. We can't say or think it might be propaganda or a comment on someone's gullibility or anything. We can only read the story and accept it as it is. We have no way of interpreting it in ways you suggest it "could be" without external and contextual guides. We are looking at the tale without those guides and contexts. By itself we have no justification for suspecting it is propaganda or a psychological commentary or anything other than what we read.
Paul the Uncertain wrote:It isn't just that we'd lose information about the story's well-foundedness, we'd also lose the point of telling it.
But we have no way of establishing any "point of telling it" without contextual guides that we have removed for the point of this exercise.



Paul the Uncertain wrote:
I don't see on what basis we could ever give any score for the mere fact of a narrator naming him/herself in a piece of writing. The simple fact of a narrator's name appearing means nothing either for historicity or fiction.
I'm not following you here. Whether or not the author is identified is a textual characteristic which you brought up (as well as anonymity being a well-known characteristic of Gospels). I thought you were saying it meant something.
My point was identification of the author. Naming is one of the ways that happens but tossing in a name alone doesn't identify anyone. Names only identify if we know who that name represents, etc. (I'm reminded of Ehrman's howler when he said a photograph would prove historicity. That's idiocy. A photograph is meaningless without context -- without external and contextual information telling us about the person in the photo.
Paul the Uncertain wrote:Obviously, if you recognize the name, and the style more or less matches other texts that bear the same name, etc. then that's a different situation from when you don't recognize the name at all. In a text-scoring scheme, we can award or subtract points for that, too.
You are getting closer to my point. Yes, if the name matches other texts bearing the same name then that's external context. We also need to have some assurance that we have legitimate reasons to match the name in the text with the same name elsewhere.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Definitions can always be helpful in guiding a discussion and I found several definitions of history in Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary by A.J. Greimas and J. Courtes, pp. 143f. I will quote just the first two definitions. The asterisks in the quotation are
used to remind the reader of broader conceptual fields which permit a better situating of the terms under definition (or of one of its constitutive elements), either within an autonomous component of the theory or by linking it to a circumscribed epistemological locus. (p. xv)
HI/STORY
(histoire)
The term hi/story (the French term comprises the meanings of both "history" and "story") is ambiguous and covers contents quite different the one from the other.

1. By hi/story (history) is understood a semantic universe considered an object* of knowledge, the intelligibility of which, postulated a priori, is based on a diachronic* articulation* of its elements. In this sense, "history" can be considered as a semiotic system as object (or as a set of semiotic systems taken prior to their analysis*) the approach of which is determined beforehand by certain postulates.

2. Hi/story (as story) corresponds, on the other hand, to the narration or to the description of actions the veridictory of which status is not fixed (they can be declared to be past and "real," imaginary, or even undecidable). From this viewpoint, hi/story is to be considered as a narrative discourse (as "historical narration," after E. Benveniste, or simply as "narration").
Definitions 3, 4 and 5 (which I omit for now) cover "historical discourse" and "historical anchoring", "historiographical" and "historical linguistics", and "event history" and "fundamental history".

I am sure the above has cleared up lots of confusion and we can now pursue discussions with more cogent focus.

:consternation:

(Please do not ask me for clarification. I am still struggling to get my own head around the first sentence of the first definition!)
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Neil
You are reading a different story -- or reading into the story an alternative to the one written.
No, I'm reading the artificially isolated story differently than you are.

The story tells of nothing but people and events found in real life. I know a very tall, distractingly beautiful African woman. I pass by shops whose keepers claim to tell fortunes. I've heard a woman describe herself as a goddess (not my African friend, but few straight boys would argue with her if she did). I've read non-fiction stories about "cold" and "hot" readers getting a few things right. That's all that's on the page.

Since I made no assumption about exaggeration (could this story be any more mundane and still have been retold?), I once again wonder to whom a part of your post speaks.
I understand you seem to assume that an author could be meaning something other than what he is writing or there is something else behind the text etc.
Yes, of course. Generally, I wouldn't assume an author knows completely what he means or writes from any single intention. But that's way overanalyzing this story, stripped of context. Boy meets girl, girl rings boy's chimes. However, as theater people say, it needs a second act.
we would have no way of determining the historicity of the narrative.
Of course not, that's a contingent question. We can only estimate, not determine. There is almost no evidence (although I do know where the story comes from, etc.; it is pointless not to take that into account). I rate it as slightly more likely to have happened than not, not that you asked.
We can't say that it could be any of those things.
Too late. One of "us" already has said. Anybody can enumerate hypotheses, and assess each of them for Levi serious possibility. It's a routine beginning for analysis.

OK, you'd do it differently. Knock yourself out.

Is there a link or something to Ehrman's discussion of photographs? I can't tell what he's talking about.
You are getting closer to my point. Yes, if the name matches other texts bearing the same name then that's external context. We also need to have some assurance that we have legitimate reasons to match the name in the text with the same name elsewhere.
Great. So then no name earns fewer points than a name we check successfully. Maybe an unrecognized name gets the same or nearly the same points as no name at all. There's no issue between us here.
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by andrewcriddle »

neilgodfrey wrote:It is worth reading how at least one ancient author distinguished between "fiction" and "history":

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl2/wl211.htm
They are intended to have .... any verisimilitude in the piling up of fictions. .... [T]hey parody the cock-and-bull stories of ancient poets, historians, and philosophers; I have only refrained from adding a key because I could rely upon you to recognize as you read.

Ctesias, son of Ctesiochus of Cnidus, in his work on India and its characteristics, gives details for which he had neither the evidence of his eyes nor of hearsay. Iambulus's Oceanica is full of marvels; the whole thing is a manifest fiction, but at the same time pleasant reading. Many other writers have adopted the same plan, professing to relate their own travels, and describing monstrous beasts, savages, and strange ways of life. The fount and inspiration of their humour is the Homeric Odysseus, entertaining Alcinous's court with his prisoned winds, his men one-eyed or wild or cannibal, his beasts with many heads, and his metamorphosed comrades; the Phaeacians were simple folk, and he fooled them to the top of their bent.

When I come across a writer of this sort, I do not much mind his lying; the practice is much too well established for that, even with professed philosophers; I am only surprised at his expecting to escape detection.
When recognizes that a work has been sourced from an emulation or rewriting of Homer et al he is assured (in the absence of any other evidence to the contrary) that he is reading fiction.

What would he think of the gospels, especially given all the studies demonstrating that they are essentially "rewritten bible"?

Merely declaring personal experience is not sufficient to establish credibility as an author of "history".
My problem here is that Lucian does not appear to be distinguishing between what we would call history and what we would call fiction.
He seems to be distinguishing between honest histories and deceitful lying works falsely claiming to be history (fake news). Ctesias seems to have put forward his work as serious history despite it being largely untrue.

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neilgodfrey
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Paul the Uncertain wrote:
The story tells of nothing but people and events found in real life.
I think you are reading your own life and experience into the story as we have it to the point of reading something quite different from what is in the text alone. There is no "woman" in the story, but "the figure of a woman", there is no human beauty in the story but something "more than human", there is no human appreciation of her beauty but fear at her presence.
Paul the Uncertain wrote:
we would have no way of determining the historicity of the narrative.
Of course not, that's a contingent question. We can only estimate, not determine. There is almost no evidence (although I do know where the story comes from, etc.; it is pointless not to take that into account). I rate it as slightly more likely to have happened than not, not that you asked.
We cannot estimate a story in isolation from any context. Estimation requires some reference to some handle beyond the text itself. The is "no evidence" at all, not "almost no evidence". If I understand you correctly you rate it "slightly more likely to have happened" because it sounds plausible.

Plausibility is not itself evidence.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: Is there a link or something to Ehrman's discussion of photographs? I can't tell what he's talking about.
It's in his book, Did Jesus Exist?

Paul the Uncertain wrote:Great. So then no name earns fewer points than a name we check successfully. Maybe an unrecognized name gets the same or nearly the same points as no name at all. There's no issue between us here.
No, the point is that "name" or "no name" is meaningless and neither gets any points. A name can apply equally to history and fiction, just as can "no name" apply equally well to both.

Both Names and No-names are meaningless without context.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by neilgodfrey »

andrewcriddle wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote:It is worth reading how at least one ancient author distinguished between "fiction" and "history":

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl2/wl211.htm

. . . . . . .

When recognizes that a work has been sourced from an emulation or rewriting of Homer et al he is assured (in the absence of any other evidence to the contrary) that he is reading fiction.

What would he think of the gospels, especially given all the studies demonstrating that they are essentially "rewritten bible"?

Merely declaring personal experience is not sufficient to establish credibility as an author of "history".
My problem here is that Lucian does not appear to be distinguishing between what we would call history and what we would call fiction.
He seems to be distinguishing between honest histories and deceitful lying works falsely claiming to be history (fake news). Ctesias seems to have put forward his work as serious history despite it being largely untrue.
I don't see your observation as a "problem" but as something quite apt. I agree with you. Lucian does not have our modern genre types in mind so he is not targeting them. My use of "fiction" and "history" (in quotation marks) was meant to take the differences in modern understandings re genres and more generic meanings of the words into account.

My understanding of the main point of the OP is the question of how we can distinguish between "genuine history" from "fiction" or the misleading appearance of history.

Lucian begins his narrative facetiously with
My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers' incredulity.
Serious history, Lucian seems to be suggesting, is built upon an author's recognizable use of "reliable sources".
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Neil
I think you are reading your own life and experience into the story as we have it to the point of reading something quite different from what is in the text alone.
One of the issues before us is whether what is on the page contradicts the natural order. I have first-hand knowledge of persons and events similar to those reported, and am entitled to use that knowledge when evaluating the text.

You, too, seem to have relied on your own experience to conclude that there was something unnatural about the tale. Perhaps it is our different experiences of the world that explains our different interpretations of the story. That's been known to happen to people.
There is no "woman" in the story, but "the figure of a woman",
And so, there is the lively possibility of a woman in the story. The character will soon claim that she isn't a woman, so it is understandable that the narrator doesn't decide the issue before the issue is raised. In fact, the narrator is artfully foreshadowing that the matter will be called into question, a bona fide distinguishing feature of this story compared with others in the ever-popular "boy meets girl" category, which includes both fictive and real-life instances.
something "more than human"
We agree that the something is an abstract quality, beauty. Does the phrase mean "more beautiful than is possible for any human being to be," or does it mean "beauty which would suit a divinity" (like the beauty of all those human ladies whom Jupiter gets the hots for)? Where does it say which it is in the text?
there is no human appreciation of her beauty but fear at her presence.
I know men who seek a drink or other aid to muster the courage to speak to attractive women in social settings. I don't know personally any grown man who claims to be completely without regrets about this or that opportunity left unpursued because of hesitation at the crucial moment. I conclude that fear is within the range of human reaction to beauty.
We cannot estimate a story in isolation from any context.
We cannot make a better estimate with less information. We can, however, make an estimate. Purely prioristic estimation is essential to modern domain-independent normative systems of uncertain reasoning.
Estimation requires some reference to some handle beyond the text itself.
If the story is in natural language, then it includes "some reference to some handle beyond the text itself:" what the words mean. That suffices in some instances.

The story,

Pythagoras devised a method to trisect any planar angle using only a compass and unmarked straightedge.

is false. I cannot decide that from the "text itself," but I can decide it, with certainty, using only the text combined with my knowledge of what the words mean.

In that example, I could achieve certainty. In general, I won't, but I can always make an estimate (since in the end, I am only describing what I believe about a situation, and if that is equipoise, then so be it; equipoise is an estimate).
Plausibility is not itself evidence.

Indeed, plausibility is what is being estimated. The text itself is evidence, and as I indicated in the post, I also took into account provenance, which is evidence. I concluded that the story was plausible to whatever extent.

Thank you for the lead into Ehrman.

As I have said, the proposal is that points are awarded for textual features, and it's also fine to make awards based on background information we might know about the text or its features. What would end up being scored is the text and what we know about what's in it. How useful the scores are, and for what, would be determined after scores are awarded.

It is unlikely that the scores will result in a highly reliable and decisive classifier of history-or-fiction. Nevertheless, there may be some regular relationships between text-scores and consensus genre assignments. I see no reason to exclude that possibility, since people perform comparable feats of "screening test" design with some frequency.
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Paul the Uncertain wrote: Indeed, plausibility is what is being estimated. The text itself is evidence, and as I indicated in the post, I also took into account provenance, which is evidence. I concluded that the story was plausible to whatever extent.
I thought we were trying to estimate "historicity". If you take the text alone as evidence for historicity then everything can be historical. If it is not literally plausible then by rationalising the miraculous to assume it is an exaggerated way of talking about something more mundane it becomes plausible -- and therefore probably historical.

But even if there is nothing of the other-worldly, then it becomes even easier to assume historicity, according to how I understand your argument.

But if we read every text the way you do (replacing what it literally says with some personal everyday notion -- i.e. rationalisation to reduce everything to a common experience) then everything is plausible = probably historical.

Presumably if a text says more prosaically that Curtius Rufus met a girl etc. then it is even more likely, or at least equally likely, historical.

This all seems completely unfalsifiable to me.

Your argument seems to me to be a closed system of thought that will always verify itself.

I just saw Wonder Woman this afternoon. If I understand you correctly then WW can also be simply an exaggeration of some normal person who did mundane things that helped change history -- as happens in real life -- and is therefore quite probably historical.
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Neil
I thought we were trying to estimate "historicity"
Yes, but we seem to agree that that can't be done from the text alone, so I proposed shifting onto a more positive track of what can be done from the text alone (not least because with the Gospels... well, those are lonely texts, aren't they?)

I thought you'd be inclined to play along, since you seem to have a strong opinion about what a ~proper~ history should ~look like~, so to speak.
If it is not literally plausible then by rationalising the miraculous ...
We never reach that here, though. There's nothing "miraculous" on the page, unless the reader wants there to be. People wouldn't lie about being divinities, would they? Lol.

When we do reach the problem, it often takes the form of separating facts from interpretations of the facts.
But even if there is nothing of the other-worldly, then it becomes even easier to assume historicity, according to how I understand your argument.

Well, yeah. A story that could have happened is "easier" to estimate as historical than a story that couldn't ever happen. But serious possibility isn't a free pass, either. For example, provenance matters, too. The "Jefferson Bible" is a gospel harmony with the miracles and purely theological passages omitted. OK, what's left could have happened, but it's not an attested ancient version of the Jesus story, either. (I doubt that manufacturing false evidence was Jefferson's intent.)
But if we read every text the way you do (replacing ...
What have I replaced? The woman, and only the woman, said she's a goddess. I evaluated her statement, I did not change it. Put the context back in. Pliny didn't vouch for the story, Pliny asked for an opinion. I'm not Sura, but I have an opinion to offer.

Let me put the Tacitus version in the record, Annals 11.21, from

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... apter%3D21

with paragraphing for better readability:
Of the birth of Curtius Rufus, whom some affirm to have been the son of a gladiator, I would not publish a falsehood, while I shrink from telling the truth.

On reaching manhood he attached himself to a quæstor to whom Africa had been allotted, and was walking alone at midday in some unfrequented arcade in the town of Adrumetum, when he saw a female figure of more than human stature, and heard a voice, "Thou, Rufus, art the man who will one day come into this province as proconsul."

Raised high in hope by such a presage, he returned to Rome, where, through the lavish expenditure of his friends and his own vigorous ability, he obtained the quæstorship, and, subsequently, in competition with well-born candidates, the prætorship, by the vote of the emperor Tiberius, who threw a veil over the discredit of his origin, saying, "Curtius Rufus seems to me to be his own ancestor."

Afterwards, throughout a long old age of surly sycophancy to those above him, of arrogance to those beneath him, and of moroseness among his equals, he gained the high office of the consulship, triumphal distinctions, and, at last, the province of Africa. There he died, and so fulfilled the presage of his destiny.
I stand corrected - the story could be more mundane than Pliny's version, and still be retold. Did Tacitus' Rufus even see a woman, or just an oversized statue?
Your argument seems to me to be a closed system of thought that will always verify itself.
Since I've already given an example of a story that I know is not historical, I'm unsure how you figured that.
If I understand you correctly then WW can also be simply an exaggeration of some normal person who did mundane things that helped change history -- as happens in real life -- and is therefore quite probably historical.
Since I didn't classify Wonder Woman as historically founded, then it's on you to show that I somehow must.

Good luck with that.
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Re: What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

Post by outhouse »

neilgodfrey wrote: I just saw Wonder Woman this afternoon..
Non sequitur

Fiction/entertainment, verses theology.

If I understand you correctly then WW can also be simply an exaggeration of some normal person
Its obvious you do not understand.

There is no historical core coming from a well known comic book fictitious character. Stan Lee was not inspired from real life characters here.
Plausibility is not itself evidence.
So true.

But in periods where evidence is slim pickings, historicity is determined in levels of plausibility.

Its not like heavily documented time periods like the civil war, where you would be comparing cherry's to watermelons
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