(July 16, 2016 at 3:07 am)robvalue Wrote: This is mainly aimed at theists, although atheists are welcome to chime in.
Imagine this scenario. You have been brought into a school as a special speaker. You are to run a class about how to tell fact from fiction. These children are approaching this stage in their cognitive development. I'm using fiction to mean "didn't happen as written". This may be due to it being totally made up, or it could be because the account is very inaccurate.
The children will be handed out some random stories/accounts to read. You have to give them a rough guide as to how they should analyze each part of the story. I'm not saying they need to decide if the whole thing is factual or else it's fiction; they will deal with each section of the story in turn. This is meant to be a first pass, a smell test. A way to look for obvious fiction. It's not meant to validate the accounts any further than that. We're just comparing believable to non-believable.
What principles would you teach them?
I'll start off then by giving my principles:
(1) Are the events being described consistent with what we know? Do they contain things we don't even know are possible? If they contain such things, it is probably fiction.
(2) How consistent is it? Does it make sense within itself? If it contains a lot of contradictions, then it is probably at least partly fictional due to inaccuracy.
Do people agree with these principles, and what others would you add?
EDIT: Alternate scenario below, for anyone who doesn't feel the above is a good question.
I don't think that these are good epistemological principles. Whether or not something is true or not is independent to your or anyone elses subjective knowledge. It doesn't follow, that because you do not know that it is possible, that it is probably fiction. How consistent it is, can vary, but I don't think that this follows either as an indication of fiction. I would agree, that contradictory claims cannot both be true, in the same time; in the same way. However, you may have inconsistent reports, that are given from different perspectives about an entirely true event. Likewise, a fictional account, may be completely consistent within itself, because there was only one author. A fictional story, can be whatever the author wants, and can therefore break any rules that you make. Real life, is often not so clean.
As to what I would recommend to look for, is details, and possibly even details, that do not pertain to the objective. This could indicate, that they are recounting events, rather than just telling what is needed for their objective (this could also be done by someone telling fiction though). I think that you need to look at the context and history of the story going back to the original. How has it been perceived, and how was it originally received. Any rule based on the story itself, can be mimicked in fiction, this takes us outside of the story. Lastly, in most things, I recommend multiple lines of evidence. What other evidence backs up the claim? This could be other peoples independent testimony, collaborating evidence, depending on the significance of the story, it may be a change in ones life and practice. You also need to weigh the evidence against as well.
You can have guidelines, and indicators; but, I don't know that there is a formula you can enter, and just produce a conclusion.
