Hardback : £51.92
Literature is a source of understanding and insight into the human condition. Yet ever since Aristotle, philosophers have struggled to provide a plausible account of how this can be the case. For surely the fictionality - the sheer invented character - of the literary work means that literature concerns itself not with the real world but with other worlds - what are commonly called fictional worlds. How is it, then, that fictions can tell us something of
consequence about reality? In Fiction and the Weave of Life, John Gibson offers a novel and intriguing account of the relationship between literature and life, and shows that literature's great cultural and
cognitive value is inseparable from its fictionality and inventiveness.
Literature is a source of understanding and insight into the human condition. Yet ever since Aristotle, philosophers have struggled to provide a plausible account of how this can be the case. For surely the fictionality - the sheer invented character - of the literary work means that literature concerns itself not with the real world but with other worlds - what are commonly called fictional worlds. How is it, then, that fictions can tell us something of
consequence about reality? In Fiction and the Weave of Life, John Gibson offers a novel and intriguing account of the relationship between literature and life, and shows that literature's great cultural and
cognitive value is inseparable from its fictionality and inventiveness.
Introduction
1: The Loss of the Real
2: Literature & the Sense of the World
3: Beyond Truth and Triviality
4: The Work of Criticism
5: The Fictional & the Real
Conclusion
John Gibson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Louisville.
`Review from previous edition Gibson's book is well-written,
erudite and wide-ranging, littered with valuable insights, and his
broad vision of cognitive literary value as not constrained by
narrow notions of truth and reference is an attractive and welcome
one.
'
Cain Samuel Todd, Analysis Reviews
`We need more books like Fiction and the Weave of Life. Brief,
coherent, readable and bold ...The book is well-written, original,
and thought-provoking. It deserves to be widely read.
'
James Harold, British Journal of Aesthetics
`engaging and admirably clear ... rigorous and stimulating
'
Times Higher Education
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