Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

amirbey's picture

Darwin, a fictional writer

The definition of a foundationalist is still a bit confusing to me.  But if I take this definition as a person who bases his observations on a foundation, a fixed base, something that he is sure of, then we could think that a foundationalist would write non-fictional texts.  However, in one of my French classes, the teacher gave us the definition of a fictional text as reality which encounters some inexplicable facts.  If we take into consideration this definition, we could imagine that a foundationalist can write fictional texts since the text is based on a certain reality, and in which we might find some mysterious facts.  But wasn’t this Darwin’s case? Wasn’t he writing on observations, (which could represent his foundation), and weren’t there some unexplained facts in his texts since he did not have enough knowledge at his time to explain them? So, Darwin could have written in his time a fictional book. 

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
6 + 11 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.