Some Differences Between Poets and Philosophers:
- Poets are performers and persnickety. Philosophers are mostly ex-nerds or averages joes (mostly joes, also mind you, not janes where as poetry departments are heavy on the ladies) who like to use dinner to argue. Poets either don't speak much at all or are extrordinarily cool and prefer to use dinner to drink and to gossip rather than pontificate.
- Poets think they are in some way "ordinary people"... they're writing about what's really happening, what's really out there, for what people really care; philosophers argue about why what they do is applicable or underpins what's going on "out there" but rarely simply accept that they are doing what "regular people" are doing
-Poets and writers really don't care about argument! They occasionally think they do of course, but it's nothing like philosophy. Seth Bernadette can find all the argument in the action he wants, but something really happened when mythos and logos diverged...
- Poets mine the current events, encylcopedias, and art exhibits for images and tropes to link in intuitive associations where philosophers look for evidence, trends, and historically contextualized trivia that they can place neatly in a stable niches of a well-constructed historical or analytical account.
- Poets read other poets and allude to philosophers to make things sound cosmically significant. Philosophers read other philosophers and allude to poets to make things sound humanly significant.
1 comment:
You might begin to make the same arguments about architects vs. scientists.
When you talk about the difference between "poets" and "philosophers" which one are you acting as? It seems to be a bit of both to me...
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