Imaginative and Fictionality Failure: A Normative Approach

Philosophers' Imprint 15 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

If a work of literary fiction prescribes us to imagine that the Devil made a bet with God and transformed into a poodle, then that claim is true in the fiction and we imagine accordingly. Generally, we cooperate imaginatively with literary fictions, however bizarre, and the things authors write into their stories become true in the fiction. But for some claims, such as moral falsehoods, this seems not to be straightforwardly the case, which raises the question: Why not? The puzzles such cases raise are sometimes grouped under the heading “imaginative resistance”. In this paper, I argue against what I take to be the best attempts to dismiss the puzzles and solve them. I also tease out subtleties not sufficiently addressed in the existing literature and end by defending a unified solution of my own. According to this solution, the puzzling phenomena occur when literary works offer inadequate and exhaustive grounds for claims. The solution’s novelty lies in its giving a normative rather than psychological or alethic explanation for the puzzling phenomena, the relevant norms being those of proper artistic appreciation

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Imaginative resistance as imagistic resistance.Uku Tooming - 2017 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (5):684-706.
Imaginative resistance without conflict.Anna Mahtani - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 158 (3):415-429.
Resisting imaginative resistance.Kathleen Stock - 2005 - Philosophical Quarterly 55 (221):607–624.
Imaginative Resistance and Modal Knowledge.Daniel Nolan - 2020 - Res Philosophica 97 (4):661-685.
Perspectives in imaginative engagement with fiction.Elisabeth Camp - 2017 - Philosophical Perspectives 31 (1):73-102.
The Puzzle of Imaginative Failure.Stuart Brock - 2012 - Philosophical Quarterly 62 (248):443-463.
Imaginative Resistance.Piotr Biłgorajski - 2024 - Analiza I Egzystencja 67:127-148.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-12-16

Downloads
102 (#215,279)

6 months
13 (#214,435)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Nils-Hennes Stear
Uppsala University

Citations of this work

Imagination.Shen-yi Liao & Tamar Gendler - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Imagination.Tamar Szabó Gendler - 2012 - In Ed Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The Content-Dependence of Imaginative Resistance.Hanna Kim, Markus Kneer & Michael T. Stuart - 2018 - In Florian Cova & Sébastien Réhault, Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 143-166.
Imaginative Resistance.Emine Hande Tuna - 2020 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Imaginative Resistance and Modal Knowledge.Daniel Nolan - 2020 - Res Philosophica 97 (4):661-685.

View all 10 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references