To Tell What Happened as Invention

Abstract

This essay examines the question whether we can acquire knowledge from fiction. The main claim is a nuanced positive answer. It is based on an account of the fiction/non-fiction distinction that I have defended elsewhere. Narrative non-fiction consists of an assertoric core – a speech act governed by a norm requiring truth for its correctness. Fiction consists of a core of fiction-making – speech acts not governed by a norm requiring truth for correctness, but one requiring for correctness that interesting imaginings are invited. This account is compatible with fictions involving truth and allowing for the acquisition of knowledge, on at least two counts. First, like other speech acts (say, rhetorical questions), acts of fiction-making can indirectly convey assertions. Second, but not less important, fictions may assert background facts about the time, the place, or the characters setting up the fiction. I present and discuss illustrative examples of the first kind, in McEwan’s Atonement and Marías’s Dark Back of Time, which, I claim, indirectly make assertions precisely about the topic of the paper.

Key Words: Fiction, Assertion, Speech Acts, Aesthetic Cognitivism