Pynchon's "muse" (was ...

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> No Terrance. Something happening and writing about something which happened
> are very different, protest as you might.
> 
> best

I'm not protesting, I'm simply answering your question. 

Your question was, 



> If two historians disagree about what happened, or about why it happened,
> then *at least* one of them is writing something which might also be called
> "fiction", isn't she?
> 
> best


I asked, why? 

I asked where your proposition is supported.  Do you hold
that the past is one? 
That the past is one and therefore only one history of the 
past  can be history while all others must be fictions? 
 
You said, 

"If two historians disagree about what happened, or about
why it happened,
 then *at least* one of them is writing something which
might also be called
 "fiction", isn't she?

I suspected that the questions was rhetorical. 

So I wrote: 


My guess is that implicit in your semantics is the notion
that all "history as text" is fiction. I hardly think that
you would be arguing that the past is one and therefore all
accounts of the past should be the same. 


I said, I have only given this a little thought but that by
common sense I think that the past is one. The past is one, 
but we have many histories of the past. 

Common sense also says that all attempts to reconcile those
different histories by stating that one history is the true
history and refuting all others is not destined to succeed.
So saying that one history is the one  true history that
renders all histories that differ, false histories or saying
that one is history while all others are fiction is a futile
exercise. 


I said, it makes good sense to admit that history belongs to
the past and the past is the time before the present. 

That being said, we can also say that the past admits of
more
than one valid formulation.

That being said, that the reason for this fact is to be
discovered not in language but  in the nature of thought
itself. 

Again, taking your question, I asked, 

If two people disagree about the past, what happened and
why, must one be fiction and one history? 
And, must all differences about the past be considered
substantive and resoluble by an appeal to an "either or"
formulation or logic and the facts? 


I did not simply reply to your question but to another one
of your posts when I said, 

You seem to be admitting that history, like fiction is a
product arbitrary and
conventional, but refusing to appreciate the fact that this
is not simply a matter of who gets to say what about the
past and what they say, and what causes they attribute to
the events they choose to include, but a noetic quality:
arbitrary and conventional, like thought itself.  

This, idea, that texts, historical or fictional, religious
and mythical, are arbitrary and conventional products of the
nature of the human mind is a big theme in GR. 

The problem as I see it, is not about fiction being history
or the other way round, but communication across and between
different theoretical formulations.  Rather than collapsing
all the so called rigid boundaries by renaming everything
with quotation marks, i.e., "history as fiction," and
setting up agons, like the one you started with--if two
historian don't agree at least one might be said to be
writing fiction--why not recognize the urgent need to toss
the jargon and semantics and  language games out in the
interest of communication so that achievements made possible
by one framework or formulation may be incorporated in
another.