The Philosophy of Fiction

Imagination and Cognition

This book presents new research on the crucial role that imagination plays in contemporary philosophy of fiction. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and literary studies.

This book presents new research on the crucial role that imagination plays in contemporary philosophy of fiction.

The first part of the book challenges the main paradigm set by Kendall Walton and Gregory Currie, according to which there is a necessary connection between fiction and a prescription that we engage imaginatively with its content. The contributors address the fundamental questions of how we can define fiction, and especially whether we can define fiction in terms of imagination. The second part focuses on a distinct but related question: can we point to some distinctive experiential features of our engagement with fiction? In the third part, the focus lies on the cognitive value of fiction and on the role that imagination plays in that respect. The chapters in this part discuss the cognitive value of fiction with respect to issues such as the training of the faculty of imagination, phenomenal experience, empathy, and the emotions.

The Philosophy of Fiction will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and literary studies.

Chapter 13 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Contributor: Patrik Engisch (Edited by), Julia Langkau (Edited by)

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.