ISSN: 2641-9130
Authors: Gilead A*
In Oscar Wilde’s The Decay of Lying, Vivian posits quite an intriguing idea: contrary to the accepted view, which has prevailed since Plato, it is not art that imitates reality but it is reality that imitates art. Fascinated by this idea, I suggest a revision of it, especially relating to the literary art. Reality actualizes, imitates, or represents individual pure, non-actual possibilities that are mind-independent (which renders the notion of possible worlds dispensable or redundant). The artistic mind reveals these possibilities by non-empirical means-intellect and imagination. On the grounds of these possibilities, we can see, recognize, identify, understand, and evaluate actualities that empirically actualize some of these possibilities. These pure possibilities are also the source of the meanings, significance, and values of the relevant actualities. Values thus pertain to the modal realm of individual pure possibilities, to which “the ought†and “the should†pertain. While Wilde’s Vivian endorses a kind of idealism, I, following a special kind of realism about individual pure possibilities and about actualities as well, attempt to explain his intriguing claim on quite different grounds. Daily life may actualize or imitate, for example, some pure possibilities that masterpieces by Franz Kafka or Harold Pinter reveal. I end by challenging Erich Auerbach’s view concerning the representation of reality in Western literature.
Keywords: Individual pure possibilities; Possible worlds; Realism; Idealism; Actualization; Imitation; Representation; Evaluation; Values; Fictions; Plato; Platonic philosophy of mathematics; Aristotle; Dante; Oscar Wilde; Franz Kafka; Harold Pinter; Marcel Proust; Virginia Woolf; James Joyce; Erich Auerbach.
