Fakery

What Does A Fake Book of Philosophy Get You? 

Well, that seems to be the point of Jonathan Egid's Forging philosophy. While having a long windup (and an amusing one, if you are a reader of philosophy), the essay centers on the following:

But none of these examples, from philosophical felines to pseudo-Augustine or imaginary Chinese Platonists, is quite as perplexing as that of the Ḥatäta Zera Yacob. The Ḥatäta, or ‘enquiry’ (the root of which, ሐ-ተ-ተ, in the ancient Ethiopian language of Geʽez literally means ‘to investigate, examine, search’ ) is an unusual work of philosophy for a number of reasons. It is not only a philosophical treatise but also an autobiography, a religious meditation and a witness of the religious wars that plagued Ethiopia in the early 17th century; it presents a theodicy and cosmological argument apparently independent of other traditions of Christian thought; it employs a subtle philosophical vocabulary that is virtually without precursors. Finally, and most perplexingly, the progenitor of these ideas, the Zera Yacob who is the subject of the autobiography and gives his name to the title, may never have existed.

Okay, that is interesting for a topic, but probably a bit dense. How this Ethiopian philosopher solved his problem is maybe more understandable:

His answer is remarkable. The only thing that can decide between competing religious claims is something that every human has inside them: the god-given faculty of lebbuna (variously translated as ‘reason’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘understanding’) that allows us to perceive what is right and wrong, good and bad by means of it being attuned to a kind of pre-established harmony between the creator, creation at large and this faculty itself. Lebbuna is common to kopt and ferenj, man and woman, young and old: truth and goodness is accessible to all, equally. And yet humans do not use it. It is onerous to apply one’s reason, and mankind is by nature lazy, preferring to be led by received wisdom.

I think we can all agree with the last sentence - humanity is too lazy to be rational.

To my poorly furnished and tired mind, this paragraph comes to the right conclusion. Fake philosophy gives you something to think about  - if the writer is any good.

Presumably, what we care about most in a philosophical text are its arguments, its attempts to get at the truth and its means of getting there. If the argument is what interests us, then should the authorship matter, given that the argument is exactly the same, regardless who wrote it? Of course, historical context is important, both for understanding how the text might have come to be and what the text means. But unless this exploring of context is employed in the service of understanding and elucidating the arguments, we are treating the work as a historical curiosity rather than a source of insight. In the case of the Ḥatäta Zera Yacob, this would be a mistake, for the arguments are powerful and abidingly relevant. These arguments – about the causes of human suffering and conflict, the epistemology of disagreement and the twin temptations of relativism and blind absolutism, the relation between the world and our cognitive faculties – are precisely what tends to fall out when the discussion of the Ḥatäta focuses exclusively on the topic of authenticity.

All in all, an enjoyable diversion for this Friday evening; a good excuse for my procrastination towards my writing; and I leave it having learned something new. I guess that means I am still alive.

History's Fake Things

Over at The Washington Post, Becca Rothfeld reviewed Walter Scheirer's ‘A History of Fake Things on the Internet,’  under Yes, people lie online. But it may matter less than we fear.

What distinguishes toxic falsehoods from sustaining fictions? And which of the two flourishes in the wilds of the internet, where hoaxes thrive and doctored images abound? In “A History of Fake Things on the Internet,” computer scientist Walter J. Scheirer proposes that much of what has been disparaged as “misinformation” is best considered under a different rubric: that of art. “Haven’t creative art forms like the novel always challenged the truth in some way?” he provocatively asks. “Why turn away from new innovations in storytelling simply because they provide an outlet for folks intent on making things up?”

Some readers may find it hard to entertain such questions when a small percentage of online deceptions have fomented such dramatic political upheaval: The outrageous QAnon doctrine, which inspired many of the extremists who swarmed the Capitol in 2021, is one of the most loudly publicized lies on the internet. But the intriguing case studies in Scheirer’s bold book demonstrate that the vast majority of “fake things on the internet” are clever and harmless pranks — and that a handful are full-fledged triumphs of the imagination.

Which combined with the first selection seems to agree that creativity has its own value. Except for one difference: a cogent philosophical argument differs from a well-produced prank. Knowing that a story is a story puts the reader in a different position than one who is led to believe a fiction to be factual. One reads a novel assuming it is fiction; one can read misinformation and show up at a pizza restaurant intent on killing people.

sch 12/15