tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20402273.post9168168830459611342..comments2024-03-22T08:07:47.253+00:00Comments on Alan Winfield's Web Log: What I've changed my mind about and WhyAlan Winfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08263812573346115168noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20402273.post-29471459974302788602008-01-10T16:25:00.000+00:002008-01-10T16:25:00.000+00:00As you say, the Edge question and its subtitle bri...As you say, the Edge question and its subtitle bring home how crucial a thing the ability to change one’s mind is; it makes me ponder how some fields of human endeavour foster this ability while others seem almost perversely to discourage it. I’m now well embarked on a D.Phil in German literature, but went through agonies of indecision as to whether to do so, arising largely from a despairing frustration with the state of much of literary criticism: an endless accumulation of theorizing, words piled on words without ever even suggesting the possibility of validating or falsifying them in any external way. State an opinion about an author or their work; others might argue with you and state theirs; but the criteria for mind-changing are essentially subjective. There’s a great tower of interpretation, dwindling into dizzyingly arcane heights, and no firm ground beneath. Science, though, provides some sort of ground, in its basis on evidence. Come up with a theory – then make a hypothesis, and then test it. And see how the data correspond, or not, with your argument. And if not – dare to change your mind. It’s frightening, of course, the idea that you really might be ‘proven’ wrong – or prove yourself wrong; but, compared with the alternative, weaving pretty theories in the air of critical erudition, it’s infinitely exhilarating too. Research into anything at all ought to have some sort of interaction between ‘arguments’ and ‘findings’ – with only empty arguments there is no chance of ever finding anything at all: finding anything new, or finding you were wrong about something you thought you knew. At least this realization has helped me change my mind about literary criticism being doomed to self-destruction – and made me start to try to resuscitate it by finding things out that critics, and everyone else, might change their minds about for some better reason than just argumentative eloquence; and that matter enough for them to bother to do so. Not in the same league as Newtonian laws of motion, or the computational miracles of a single cell, perhaps – but things like why we read and what happens when we read, that in a way are just as thrilling to explore, and try to prove, or be proven wrong about.Emily Trosciankohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15398795376977385054noreply@blogger.com