Today in class we were discussing various genres of literature in Medieval Germany. We had been given a text to read over the weekend and part of our assignment was to classify it based on a list of genres which we have put together throughout the course of the semester. A small debate arose between a few students over the correct classification and our professor informed us that it is difficult to create specific borders for literary genre and that arguments could be made on various sides of the question. My question has to do broadly with the definition of words and specifically with classification or the imposing of a "system" on phenomena. Is there a such thing as a "legend" or a "fable"? If so, who gets to decide what a legend is and what makes a legend? Or is it only possible for these words to be used conventionally since they have been created by us to impose a system on a set of data in order to "better understand" phenomena? This question could be extended to all sorts of contexts. What effect does the answer to the question have on the philosophy of language, our understanding of knowledge, etc.? The question brought me back to my class last semester on Plato and his doctrine of the forms/ideas.

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Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

Tidy little question. Addressing it would probably take you through the entire history of philosophy, linguistics, taxonomy, symbolics, and maybe a few side subjects.

Re legend vs. fable, I think we distinguish legend as an embellished true story and fable as a fictional moral story. Seems to be a useful distinction, but no question a legend can be so embellished that it becomes a fable. I think many of the non-biblical creation stories, for example, have an origin in the true story presented by scripture, but have become embellished and diluted in the truth they contain. At some point, they become mere fables.

Regarding why we categorize things, I'll invoke Dabney again, in his Sensualistic Philosophy (I love that book). He talks about man having innate capacities, created in the image of God. One of those capacities is to categorize things to better understand them. I think that is a good starting point. It avoids obsessing on philosophical question of "why categorize?" It is a given.

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R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

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Hey Vic,

I had a feeling that I was only asking the same question that has been asked for millenia. There is truly nothing new under the sun!

The reference to Dabney seems right on. I certainly would not doubt the fact that we have a capacity to organize things and thereby better understand them. However, could it be said that this "better understanding" is at the end of the day merely conventional and not real?