Versificationism is presumably the doctrine that the truth of a proposition should be evaluated on the basis of how easily it can be expressed in poetic form. Empirically, this seems to favour any number of probably-untrue beliefs, so I’m inclined to reject it. :-)
I have in fact seen something a little like this, in a more sophisticated form, maintained seriously. For instance, here’s Dorothy L Sayers (the context is her series of radio plays “The man born to be king”). “From the purely dramatic point of view the theology is a enormously advantageous, because it locks the whole structure into a massive intellectual coherence. It is scarcely possible to build up anything lop-sided, trivial or uinsound on that steely and gigantic framework. [...] there is no more searching test of a theology than to submit it to dramatic handling; nothing so glaringly exposes inconsistencies in a character, a story, or a philosophy as to put it upon the stage and allow it to speak for itself. [...] As I once made a character say in another context: ‘Right in art is right in practice’; and I can only affirm that at no point have I yet found artistic truth and theological truth at variance.”
And, though I disagree with her entirely on the truth of the sort of theology she’s writing about, I think she does actually have a point of sorts. But a professional writer of fiction like Sayers really ought to have known better than to suggest that truth can be distinguished from untruth by seeing how easily each can be formed into art.
A related epistemology that is popular in the business world is PowerPointificationism, which holds that the truth of a proposition should be evaluated by how easily it can be expressed in PowerPoint. Due to the nature of PowerPoint as a means of expression, this epistemology often produces results similar to those of Occam’s sand-blaster, which holds that the simplest explanation is the correct one (note that unlike Occam’s razor, Occam’s sand-blaster does not require that the explanation be consistent with observation).
Occam’s sand-blaster, which holds that the simplest explanation is the correct one (note that unlike Occam’s razor, Occam’s sand-blaster does not require that the explanation be consistent with observation).
Versificationism is presumably the doctrine that the truth of a proposition should be evaluated on the basis of how easily it can be expressed in poetic form. Empirically, this seems to favour any number of probably-untrue beliefs, so I’m inclined to reject it. :-)
I have in fact seen something a little like this, in a more sophisticated form, maintained seriously. For instance, here’s Dorothy L Sayers (the context is her series of radio plays “The man born to be king”). “From the purely dramatic point of view the theology is a enormously advantageous, because it locks the whole structure into a massive intellectual coherence. It is scarcely possible to build up anything lop-sided, trivial or uinsound on that steely and gigantic framework. [...] there is no more searching test of a theology than to submit it to dramatic handling; nothing so glaringly exposes inconsistencies in a character, a story, or a philosophy as to put it upon the stage and allow it to speak for itself. [...] As I once made a character say in another context: ‘Right in art is right in practice’; and I can only affirm that at no point have I yet found artistic truth and theological truth at variance.”
And, though I disagree with her entirely on the truth of the sort of theology she’s writing about, I think she does actually have a point of sorts. But a professional writer of fiction like Sayers really ought to have known better than to suggest that truth can be distinguished from untruth by seeing how easily each can be formed into art.
A related epistemology that is popular in the business world is PowerPointificationism, which holds that the truth of a proposition should be evaluated by how easily it can be expressed in PowerPoint. Due to the nature of PowerPoint as a means of expression, this epistemology often produces results similar to those of Occam’s sand-blaster, which holds that the simplest explanation is the correct one (note that unlike Occam’s razor, Occam’s sand-blaster does not require that the explanation be consistent with observation).
...and I just spit coffee on my keyboard.
That’s marvelous… is that original with you?
I take it you’re familiar with Edward Tufte’s “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint”?