Can We Learn About Real Social Worlds From Fictional Ones

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-29-2020

Publication Title

International Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volume

33

Issue

2

First page number:

275

Last page number:

293

Abstract

It is very common for social scientists to be asked whether their findings about human nature could also be learned from reading great works of literature. Literature teachers frequently assign readings partly to teach people important truths about the world. But it is unclear how looking at a work of fiction can tell us about the real world at all. In this paper I carefully examine questions about the conditions under which the fictional world can teach us about the real world.

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Philosophy

Language

English

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