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The experience of fiction
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John, Eileen (2022) The experience of fiction. In: Engisch, Patrik and Langkau, Julia, (eds.) The Philosophy of Fiction : Imagination and Cognition. Routledge Research in Aesthetics . Routledge, pp. 120-139. ISBN 9781003139720
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003139720-9
Abstract
Appeals to imagination to distinguish fiction from nonfiction have been persuasively challenged by philosophers such as Derek Matravers and Stacie Friend. This essay aims to uphold the importance of the fiction/nonfiction distinction by other means. Instead of relying on contrasting roles for imagination and belief, can we isolate kinds of experience that are paradigmatically sustained by fiction? Can status as fiction encourage, and help to explain, certain tendencies and qualities of experience? Several common aspects of experience, of what it is like to experience something as fiction, are proposed: the experience of individuals as representative; a linked epistemic and aesthetic interest in detail; and openness to evaluative judgement. Nonfictional works can support these experiences, but they make most sense ethically and epistemically in the context of fiction.
Item Type: | Book Item | ||||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BC Logic B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BH Aesthetics P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||||
SWORD Depositor: | Library Publications Router | ||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Fiction -- History and criticism, Fiction -- Psychological aspects, Imagination (Philosophy), Fictions, Theory of | ||||||
Series Name: | Routledge Research in Aesthetics | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | The Philosophy of Fiction | ||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||
ISBN: | 9781003139720 | ||||||
Book Title: | The Philosophy of Fiction : Imagination and Cognition | ||||||
Editor: | Engisch, Patrik and Langkau, Julia | ||||||
Official Date: | 13 October 2022 | ||||||
Dates: |
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Page Range: | pp. 120-139 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.4324/9781003139720-9 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 14 November 2022 | ||||||
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