Dorian argues that they're real because they have a certain psychological depth that resembles real people. But real people have minds that work in the particular way that they do regardless of what anyone, including themselves thinks about it. The characters in the opera, however, can only resemble real people as much as the theories of the author contain truth. So if Mozart is wrong about some aspect of how minds work (implicitly or explicitly), and he almost surely is, then this error would be contained in the characters and so they would not be people in the "complete sense". It seems to me this would also fit in nicely with the discussion you were having at the end of the webinar where you were discussing how Mozart could be wrong. So basically when Mozart was making a change that wasn't an improvement there was less truth about a person in his (mostly implicit) ideas. Curious to hear what anyone thinks of this take on it.
I think Dorian would argue that Mozart's could be wrong about the characters in his operas, but the fact that he *can* be wrong implies that there are objective truths about the characters that we can uncover. Deutsch made that same point halfway through the discussion by saying that ‘reality is everything we can be wrong about.’
Brilliant, loved the discussion at the end.
Dorian argues that they're real because they have a certain psychological depth that resembles real people. But real people have minds that work in the particular way that they do regardless of what anyone, including themselves thinks about it. The characters in the opera, however, can only resemble real people as much as the theories of the author contain truth. So if Mozart is wrong about some aspect of how minds work (implicitly or explicitly), and he almost surely is, then this error would be contained in the characters and so they would not be people in the "complete sense". It seems to me this would also fit in nicely with the discussion you were having at the end of the webinar where you were discussing how Mozart could be wrong. So basically when Mozart was making a change that wasn't an improvement there was less truth about a person in his (mostly implicit) ideas.
Curious to hear what anyone thinks of this take on it.
I think Dorian would argue that Mozart's could be wrong about the characters in his operas, but the fact that he *can* be wrong implies that there are objective truths about the characters that we can uncover.
Deutsch made that same point halfway through the discussion by saying that ‘reality is everything we can be wrong about.’