Presentation of my philosophico-poetical system, McDowellian!


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. My philosophico-poetical system is a highly unlikely creation, given the tradition of philosophy I was educated in and the country I live in and a lot else probably. I would like to say that it is totally my own, but actually it has at its foundation Paul Valery's claim, "To write regular verses... destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and unexpected thoughts." From this, I infer an objection to Locke on language, an objection to specialization, an explanation of how the poet can escape his (or her etc.) time, and an argument for the translatability of true poetry. (I have added an appendix which specifies some extensions to my system: on the unpredictability of the philosophical poet, against Freudian interpretation of rhyming poetry, and on the value of univocalic poetry.)
Draft version: version 2 (6th June 2025, "The chief object of value.." sentence added, appendix added)


      Paul Valery tells us, "To write regular verses... destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and unexpected thoughts." You write a line of poetry. Then you have to find a line which rhymes with it. The thing you would ordinarily say next is excluded, because you cannot make it into a rhyming line; other thoughts occur to you as you search for a rhyme. This account of how the poet develops a poem is at the foundation of my philosophico-poetical system. From it, I have inferred four conclusions. They appear in a different order to

which they occurred to me. (Only two of the conclusions have been presented previously. The appendix presents some other conclusions that occurred to me, since first putting a draft of this paper online.)


`	First conclusion: Locke is wrong about language

      Locke thinks that we can have thoughts without language. Language was invented for communicating thoughts we can have anyway, he thinks. It is natural to combine Locke with the view that the proper purpose of language is to communicate thoughts and probably he himself held that view. But given our foundational principle, we realize that poetical language is a tool for producing new thoughts. Poetical language is not just about "clothing" thoughts we already have. It is about producing new thoughts. New thoughts occur to the poet from the demand to produce a rhyming line. How can you sensibly deny that this is a proper use of language? You cannot!


Second conclusion: the poet can transcend their circumstances

      "We are all creatures of our circumstances, of our time," say some social scientists. What then will the poet write about today? He reads the newspaper and there is a war on (which the newspaper tells about!). Maybe he will write about the war. His neighbour makes noise, bothering him. Maybe he will write about that. However, when the poet tries to find a line that rhymes with his first line, all these topics fail to produce a rhyme. The poet searches beyond and finally devises a line that rhymes. The demand to rhyme can produce poetry that transcends one's circumstances, contrary to the social scientists.

      By the way, mine is one of the first new systems of the 21st century, if not the first, but the traces of its time are few, if any! There is an analogy between rhyming and philosophical system-building, I have already observed.


Third conclusion: the poet must not be limited by specialization

      We must each have a narrow specialism and stick to that specialism, says Adam Smith. But if the value of poetry is in the remote thoughts that it produces, then the poet must not be limited to a specialist field (or "zone," if you prefer that word). They must be allowed to produce rhymes which involve content that belongs to another specialism. In "The Modern Essay," Virginia Woolf asserts that it would be foolish to confine essayist Max Beerbohm to a single room. Likewise, the poet should not be confined.


Fourth conclusion: true poetry is translatable

      When we ponder what is untranslatable, we think firstly (or first!) of poetry. But if we (for convenience) call true poetry that which is written in accordance with the quotation from Valéry, true poetry is translatable. The rhymes might not be translatable but the new and remote thoughts produced by the attempt to achieve rhyme are translatable. They might not be translatable into every language, but given the arbitrariness of the sign (or word), it is logically possible for there to be another language which expresses those thoughts. The chief object of value in true poetry is translatable. This is a point of convergence between my system and that of Donald Davidson, though his system is massive in comparison and asserts translatability into any language. Here I am neutral on this assertion.

Appendix

Below are three other conclusions that occurred to me since putting this draft online. The conclusions are already online and I have just copied the text onto here.


Fifth conclusion: the unpredictability of the rhyming philosophical poet How to understand the philosophical text (including the oral text, the lecture, etc.)? A significant amount of interpretation happens in the following way, I believe: the philosopher specifies a topic, one encounters a premise and then intuits what the philosopher is trying to argue about the topic. Given the premise, it is likely that the philosopher is making the argument one has intuited (or guessed). But the rhyming philosophical poet resists this technique of interpretation. The philosophical poet specifies the topic in the title, say, and introduces a premise into their poem. What will they do with their premise?If they were not a rhyming poet, you could make a reliable guess. But what if they are unable to achieve a rhyme by making an argument that confirms your guess? The demand to rhyme leads them to do something else with their premise, something that is hard for readers to anticipate. Strange arguments are	much	more	likely	in	rhyming	philosophical	poetry.	The	rhyming philosophical poet is not a predictable character.


Sixth conclusion: against Freudian interpretation of rhyming poetry Peter Lamarque has written against psychoanalytic interpretation of fiction. Here I wish to extend my philosophico-poetical system in order to argue

against Freudian interpretation of rhyming poetry. Let us imagine that you are a poet and you come up with the opening line of a poem. You like it. You now search for a line that rhymes with it. Your unconscious, according to Freud, has repressed sexual desires and these want some expression. A line occurs to you that gives your unconscious desires expression. But it does not rhyme well with your opening line. Another line occurs to you that gives your unconscious desires expression, but this time less expression. It rhymes but the poem does not make such sense with it. Finally a line occurs to you which rhymes with your opening line and together the two lines make sense. But it does not give your unconscious desires expression. Your poem just has other demands to meet (rhyming and making sense), which reduce the chances of unconscious desires getting expressed.


Seventh conclusion: a value of univocalic poetry

My philosophico-poetical system has at its foundation Paul Valéry's claim, "To write regular verses... destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and unexpected thoughts." Now someone might say, "Regular verses is a very old-fashioned kind of poetry. A lot of poetry today and for decades is free verse." But my system can lead to an appreciation of some contemporary poetic projects and even undermine this dichotomy of old-fashioned rhyme versus contemporary poetry. First let me share some experience. I read some poetry at Manchester Central Library in late November 2024. It was free verse. After me, a woman performed some one vowel poetry: poetry in which you only use one vowel (and as many consonants as you like; you can use the vowel again and again,

by the way) - this poet used "u"! Hers significantly eclipsed my effort, I felt. I told a young comedian and poet about what happened and he said, "This one vowel poetry is a mere technical achievement," or words to that effect. My starting point for defining a technical achievement is that persons A and B have the same basic idea (or emotion) but A shows high craftsmanship skill in achieving the goal of expressing or communicating or realizing the idea - then you say that this is a technical achievement by A. I am not sure how to apply this starting point to one vowel poetry, but this is how I see it (I didn't tell the comedian-poet at the time): one vowel poetry is like rhyme. The rhyming poet writes a line and then they may want to say one thing in the next line, but that doesn't rhyme, so other thoughts occur to them in search of a rhyme. Similarly, the univocalic poet is forced by the demand to use only one vowel in strange directions. And these new directions of thought (or emotion) are of value.


References
Auden, W.H. and Kronenberger, L. 1962. The Faber Book of Aphorisms. London: Faber and Faber. (Source of the Valéry aphorism.)
Davidson, D. 1973-4. On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47: 5-20.
Edward, T.R. n.d. On philosophy without the myth of genius. Available on academia.edu
Edward, T.R. 2022. Rules, rhyme schemes, and the autonomy of the poet. Available on PhilPapers.
Edward, T.R. 2023. Locke on language and French poetic theory. Available on academia.edu
Edward, T.R. 2025. On philosophical poetry: an extension of my system. Available on PhilPapers.
Edward, T.R. 2025. From my system: against Freudian interpretation of rhyming poetry. Available on PhilPapers.
Edward, T.R. 2025. Extension of my philosophico-poetical system to cover one vowel poetry. Available on PhilPapers.
Lamarque, P. 2011. On Keeping Psychology Out of Literary Criticism. In Elisabeth Schellekens Dammann & Peter Goldie (eds.), The Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 299-312.
Smith, A. 1904 (originally 1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: Methuen. Available at: http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html
Woolf, V. 1919. The Modern Essay. Available at: https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/the-modern-essay/