so there is something new in this definition if you pay attention to it , there is something new, not only the fact that this sentence sentence is very assertive , but pay attention to this, these fable , that is to say the piece of another world has to hold a useful moral truth , this is something new , wow something you felt is everybody before god considered , that fable had to hold the moral truth, of course , what is new at this connection between a moral truth and the piece of another world , choose be told another .
leibniz later will show us, that's connecting the moral truth and the semantic dimension of the fable , is not as i didn't are straightforward, as it appears in this definition , this definition mixes aesthetic criteria, that is to say the judge of the fable assumes the administering of a moral truth , that is an aesthetic criteria, i mean fables are poems administrating a moral truth okay.
this is an aesthetic criteria, but god should mixes this criteria with a metaphysical postulation , inspired by valve, this postulation means a well written novel does not a possible world, the it is not that obvious to mix to two point of views , those two perspectives you will see later, in fact it's quite difficult, god shed finally comes to bathe, his theory of the fable on the text of valve, i have quoted before, drawing upon the id , that i show you.
yes a well written novel , that is to say what that contains no contradictions must be considered as a story from another world , most be considered as a story from another world.
i would like now to come to the problems raised by defining novel fiction as the piece of a possible world , the problems i am no considering are discussed in contemporary series , but they had already been clearly raised in these texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, first on the one hand, the restrictive structure of the possible worlds, this structure can not be applied to any fictional processes doesn't work for any fictional processes , only takes to be convinced of these, is to consider the facts , that this is an obvious fact .
i'm sure some of you already told this the fact that uh fables do not fables in shocked , do not necessarily respect the principle of contradiction , this is the first problem, fables do not necessarily respect the principle of contradiction principle, prescribed by valve in the essential passage , i have quoted .
this is the first problem in fact valve was more prudent , it was far more prudent than god shed he proves to be more prudent , then the inventors of the of philosophical aesthetics , he stipulates that in identifying a novel with the chronicle of a possible world, in identifying a novel with the chronicle of a possible world , is valid only as long are these are common fits the same minimal framework.
formal framework of intelligible it, but of course there are other types of fictions , this is the least that valves can do knowing that, all the types of fiction whose status remains quite enigmatic as a result, the status of these fictions remains enigmatic fictions . do you know referring to a possible world ?
what about the fiddles that do not respect the principle of contradiction, what about their statues there is reason to think that there should be at own denotativly empty , and it is hard to admit those fictions should be denotatively empty, they can't refer to other possible worlds , because they do not respect their formal principle of individuality.
that is to say the principle of contradiction, this is a very important problem , so pay attention, there should be denotative li empty , but they would have to expose a moral truth , things are now quite difficult . how whose fictions administrator mobile troops , if they do not refer to anything , that was the first problem, there is a number one, on another on the other hand, and above all this is the most important problem according to me, above own as god sheds rather non technical term of a piece of world , you remember .
ah thank you, he spoke of the peace of world , a piece of a nose of world, it's not a technical term, okay it's not a fit of philosophical way to uh define the ontological status of the fable , the fictional world, so non technical term indicates, it indicates something important , that is to say this table the fictional world is by definition incomplete .
it's by definition incomplete of course, and frankly there is hardly no reason , hardly any reason to think that giving it by principle , the context of a truly possible world will be essential forgetting to the bottom of its statues, in the world , in a word we cannot see how this highly costly postulate, would add anything to the intel to the intelligence of fiction itself .
it's a very highly costly postulate of possible world , and we don't see clearly , how we add something to the intelligence of the status of the fable , you have to know that this major definition there are difficulty , this major difficulty inevitably affects an aesthetic definition of fiction based on the semantic of possible worlds , even today these difficulty affects any aesthetic definition based of the fiction based on the thematic of possible worlds , it is too costly.
you see referring fictions to a possible world , is both uh very tempting, it's very tempting, but it is both very tempting and somewhat awkward .
but this was about literary fictions, novels , so to difficulties what about novels that do not respect the principle of contradictions , and how can we do meet to postulate the whole structure of a possible world in order to understand . it's a very incomplete structure of a novel , how can we justification search , of course we postulate a whole world , if i had enough time, i would i would speak tell you a few words about the semantic of possible worlds in logic today , the semantic of possible world was introduced by a very important contemporary philosophers descartes, we had some of them some of you heard of him a few decades ago.
he introduced the semantic of possible worlds in order to understand the conditions of our belief , in fact the grounds of our knowledge , if i had enough time i would show you that the difficulties and objections , the difficulties of the theory and the objections , it inspired are very similar with the problems.
we are now discovering during the eighteenth century especially the highly costly postulate of the whole world in order to justice our belief in a very incomplete structure , that is the main problem for the semantic of possible worlds , but i repeat it is a fact that those difficulties do not inevitably contaminate the philosophical use the philosophical use of narrative fictions.
i mean that philosophical use of narrative fiction be the interpreted according do the same expectations , and this is the second aspect of the most trick , three strictly leibniz and approach to uh these fictional accounts the tests, so we are going back to leibniz now, considering the second perspective the role of rules fictions considered on the model point of view , in metaphysics second point for today.
it is use up to the founders of aesthetics to burnt of fear , that the fable gives other chronicle of a possible world , there did it, there were not only feels off as they were interested in aesthetics , okay they explode themselves to difficulties, that in the end i just told you , characterize a scientific conception of fiction okay, but remember leibniz does not expressly take the step , he does not go so far, leibniz will not face that a fable or a novel is a piece of another world , you know , they did it because they were far more interested in literature than they were in philosophy , though they have this need to make it clear what fictions are referring to, and they used the leibniz , and anti convulsion interact semantic of possible worlds , but leibniz didn't go that far .
it is underneath that the element of fictional possibility , that is something he said leibniz talking about fictional possibility no doubt , it is underneath that these elements and counterfactual relationship self can possibility take shape , this is however attested to including in its instability,by leibniz positive , and no longer merely critical positive use of the argument regarding novels , so you have to consider leibniz, it's positive use of the argument of novels, i told you that according to me , novel characters , novel heroes do not have the same status as a vague adam, and now we have some proofs , there is little sense in fact there is no sense for leibniz, in imagining in the abstract and adam who does not seen.
but if there is no sense in doing that in imagining the vague adam, on the other hand , using novels to gain access to the understanding of the reality of possible worlds is permitted. that is a very big difference you see for leibniz , there is no sense in considering the vague adam this abstract notion , but we may you the example we may use novels in order to gain an access to the reality of possible worlds , to believe that there are other possible worlds.
it is on this point that fictions, in their narrative dimension always have a place in rational work though that is their role in rational work to gain an excess to the reality of possible worlds in the understanding of god .
so it is here , but leibniz needs links pragmatic considerations related to the semantics of possible worlds , so let's go to the point , a highly precise faces , it's not very general, a highly precise faces justifies these positive views of the argument of novels .
there is one precise problem, that justifies for limits, this positive use of the argument of novels, so pay attention to this, that human intelligence human intelligence as steam for the superiority of the created world , overall the possible worlds these a steam of the superiority of our created world, only comes according to leibniz, an effect, what does it mean?
i hope you see the point how are we capable of measuring the superiority of the created world , other the other possible worlds, how according to leibniz.
we can only as teams is superiority are effect to , i am going to try to explain you, what it means according to leibniz, we know for a certainty , that the world in which we are living is the best possible world, we know it precisely because it has been created , of course you may be surprised, the proof presupposes that there is an in finite number of possible worlds , in the understanding of god , okay and that there must， be a reason , there must be a reason why god has chosen this one in particular , there must be a reason .
this is a proof of the superiority of our world, there are an infinite number of possible worlds in the uncertain understanding of god , and there must be a reason why he has chosen this one, as god processes old perfection including with them , and goodness , the reason lies in the superior at this possible world in perfection bow .
this is to proof of the faces that the the created world is the best possible one , but it is not the point i am interested in, in my perspective what matters is that fictions , novels , not only novels utopias give us and id of other possible worlds, that is the reason why i'm considering this argument .
so artifact to what does it mean , what is the proof.
a proof grounded on the facts, and the facts the fact here , is that god who possesses wisdom and goodness has chosen this world, and therefore this world is the best one , this is a proof, but i repeat i am not that interested in it , when he has to administrate this proof , leibniz makes a positive use of the argument of novels, and that is more important that is what matters to me , why our knowledge of the superiority of these worlds , this world only comes a defect , why?
there are two reasons , on the one hand, fundamentally we are obviously incapable of comparing different worlds , and we must consider it is the best announced .
then announced all these words , we are unable to compare , we must consider it is the best since it was chosen by god , whose perfection we know, so is a proof resides in the effects are basic to prove results in the effects . on the other hand , though the theory of contingency requires to admit requires at meeting the reality of possible words , the theory of contingency requires it .
i showed you that in detai,l each remains that there it remains that we can in no way pictures whose words ourselves, so the theory of contingency requires to admit the reality of possible worlds.
remember in no way in no way we can failure this world's well fictional accounts, well fill this void to the extent what why do we use fictional accounts , for the reasons, we already discovered they are both possible in themselves, they are possible themselves and in composer blouin the created world , two very important conditions , and they give us the sort of representation the fictional accounts novels for intense , not only novels , they give us some sort of representation of these worlds.
that may be for example , gravity to pretend , we are more perfect， than our own we can figure this worlds , and even worlds that we believe superior to ours , this is not the important point , the important point is that novels fictions make us capital of representing all the possible worlds, we have some kind of representations of them , some kind of representation of him ,so you see it's a pragmatic use , it's not that complicated first ,the theory of contingency requires to admit the reality of other possible worlds, but second,we are early unable to know all the possible worlds, to compare them with our world .
of course when to do that , because there is some kind of void in our knowledge, fictions, narratives novels give us some free representation of these worlds , they give us the id of all the possible worlds .
it's quite different than it was that it will be in god , god shed is asserting that fable is a piece of another world, then it will not say that of course not , but the fable can make us believe that there are other possible worlds ,it's pretty different ,okay let's come back, i show you , the first sentence is remarkable .
it is true that we can imagine possible worlds , stop , this is remarkable , and this is all of fictions in metaphysics , we can imagine other possible worlds, of course we can not we cannot know them, we can not access gain an access to this world for real , but in our imagination , we have a way to believe that there are other possible worlds , which is very important why, because it helps us to believe that god has chosen our world , therefore , that it is the best , well it is true that we can imagine possible words without seeing , and without misfortune and we could make them into novels utopias severe arms.
i will tell you late,r what what it means, don't worry uh , in fact those are teacher, uh not novels of course , but utopia names , for earth utopia is a common name, but first of all it is a title of a very important book written by thomas mall , i will show you something later .
