Understanding Fiction
Knowledge and Meaning in Literature
von
Jürgen Daiber, Eva-Maria Konrad, Thomas Petraschka
1. Auflage
Understanding Fiction – Daiber / Konrad / Petraschka
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Thematische Gliederung:
Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik
mentis 2012
Verlag C.H. Beck im Internet:
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ISBN 978 3 89785 790 2
Inhaltsverzeichnis: Understanding Fiction – Daiber / Konrad / Petraschka
Jürgen Daiber | Eva-Maria Konrad
Thomas Petraschka | Hans Rott (eds.)
Understanding Fiction
Knowledge and Meaning
in Literature
mentis
MÜNSTER
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Robert Stecker
LITERATURE AS THOUGHT
The main purpose of this paper is to argue for a modest view of the cognitive value of fiction in the context of the arts – of art fiction, including, but
not confined to literature. I also want to consider this question in a broader
context: of fiction as compared with clearly cognitive enterprises such as
science, the study of history and philosophy. Fiction in general and art
forms that characteristically generate fictions such as literature, cinema, and
so on are often unfavorably compared to these other enterprises.1 I believe
that in one respect these comparisons are just viz. in their respective ability
to justify the conjectures, hypotheses, or theses that they put forward. But I
also think that to limit the cognitive value of these various disciplines to
their ability to justify is to take too narrow a view, and there are other cognitive functions for which fiction is eminently suited. Further, I will argue that
fiction and philosophy aim to fulfill some similar functions.
Before I address this issue, there are two others. First, I want to say
something about the semantics of sentences in fictional works, and second,
about the aims and uses of fiction in various contexts. This will address the
issue of whether we should think of fictional works as containing truths,
falsehoods or something that is neither true nor false, and it will set the
stage for addressing the main issue of cognitive value.
1. SEMANTICS OF FICTION
Are fictional works “texts we know to be false?” The story is more complicated, and it should be addressed at a number of different levels. Sentences
occurring at the level of text are neither true nor false. Other pragmatically
generated levels will be discussed below. The discussion of this section will
conclude by showing how the semantics I am proposing for fiction helps
explain how we can discover in fictional works broader conceptions that are
evaluable for truth and other cognitively significant properties
Texts of literary works are abstract linguistic structures. We are only talking about a subclass of fictions when linking works with texts. (The structures that underlie a typical fictional work of cinema would be more complicated and not wholly constituted by texts. They would consist of whatever
1
Such unfavorable comparisons are found in Lamarque/Olsen 1994, Lamarque 2009, pp.
220-254, and Stolnitz 1992. For judicious assessment of these discussions, see Davies 2007,
pp. 142-163.
12
Robert Stecker
underlies the moving image: patterns of light, pixels, etc. In addition, there is
the text of dialogue, and the sound structure used by the score.) However,
whatever the constituting structures, they should be distinguished from the
work associated with them.2 At the first level – that of texts – these can be
thought of as strings of sentence-types (in the case of literature) not yet used
to say or do anything. They have on my view both syntactic and semantic
properties but, they do not yet have truth values. Take the sentence “My
sister Yuchin and I used to write letters to each other” (Ha Jin, “Bane of the
Internet”). At the level of the text, the expressions “my sister”, “Yuchin”,
and “I” have their characteristic linguistic roles in English, but no reference
real or imaginary. It is at the level of the work that the sentences are put to
use to say or do something. A literary or cinematic work is a structure in
use. But even within this structure, several levels of meaning should be distinguished. At the literal semantic level, the sentence just mentioned means
“x is the sister of y, and x and y used to write each other.” That is, the
terms, “Yuchin” and “I”, lacking referents, simply function as syntactic
items – variables or place holders – to form open sentences and express
incomplete thoughts or propositions.3 At the next level – a pragmatic one –
Ha Jin is using this open sentence to make it true in the fiction that there is
someone narrating a story, she has a sister, and the narrator and the sister
used to write to each other. In virtue of our recognizing this to be a work of
fiction, Ha Jin simultaneously gets us to imagine the state of affairs made
true in the fiction by his use of the sentence, and to recognize that this state
of affairs is true in the fiction. Finally, at yet another level, the level of the
use by Ha Jin of larger groups of sentences, ultimately all of the sentences
constituting the story (the work), there are further things he is saying or
doing that give the work value as literature, as art. There is not one simple
way of referring to these. Among them is giving the work aesthetic properties. I want to argue here that also among them is using the work as a vehicle of thought, of cognition. I also will argue the aesthetic and the cognitive
are intimately related in literature and in narrative arts more generally.
Let me conclude this section by returning to the issue of truth in fictional
artworks. First, I suggest that the best way to think of the sentence quoted
above as well as Ha Jin’s utterance (the product of his use of that sentence
in the work “The Bane of the Internet”) is that both are neither true nor
false. Hence neither the sentence nor the utterance is false. The utterance
expresses an incomplete thought (unlike the sentence of the text which is
too semantically indeterminate to express a thought.) Whatever the utter2
3
The distinction between texts and works has become common in the analytic philosophy
of art and literature. See, for example, Lamarque 2010 and Stecker 2008.
For a detailed explication of the semantics behind the claim, see Adams/Stecker/Fuller
1997.
Literature as Thought
13
ance conveys pragmatically, semantically it is does not express a complete
proposition. However, this is not the whole story about fictional works.
“The Bane of the Internet” is part of a collection of stories that take place
within the immigrant Chinese community in Flushing, Queens, NYC.4 Ha
Jin often refers to Flushing, its streets and local attractions (Flushing Mall,
Sheraton Hotel), other parts of NYC, other American, Chinese and European cities. Here he expresses complete propositions, some true, some possibly false, some, because of the presence of a vacuous singular term in the
same sentence, neither true nor false. Finally, as I will argue below, when
fiction is used as a vehicle of thought, one important way it does so is by
expressing a conception of something – say an aspect of life within an immigrant community. Such a conception can be true or false, plausible or
implausible, explanatorily powerful in the sense that if true, a lot of seemingly disparate facts would cohere together. An interesting and much disputed question is whether it matters to the literary value of a work whether
it has any of these cognitive properties.
Finally, let me mention that the semantics I am proposing for fiction
helps explain how it is easy to generate broader conceptions that are evaluable for truth and other cognitively significant properties. It is common in
such works for a variety of things one is merely to imagine to be true (and
are true in the fiction) to be embedded in a social setting that is truly described – a neighborhood of the real world. The merely imagined aspect is
expressed by open sentences like “x is F.” This lends itself to possible generalizations. Is there a class of things y, such that, if y is F, y is G? I don’t
say one needs to adopt the semantics proposed here to get fictional works
generating interesting thoughts, but one can see how such thoughts might
easily emerge in fiction, given the proposed semantics.
2. USES OF FICTION
What all fictions seem to have in common is that they are aiming to get us
to imagine a web of connected states of affairs. So even when we have a
sentence that semantically expresses an incomplete proposition, the aim of
inscribing the sentence is to get us to imagine that there is someone or
something about which various things are true (or, that so & so, the imagined referent of a fictional name, has properties f1-fn). Beyond this basic aim,
there are many uses to which fictions can be put, many of which are not
literary or artistic. Here are two oft mentioned uses. When we deliberate
about what to do, we often try to imagine what it will be like to pursue each
4
Cf. Ha Jin 2009.
14
Robert Stecker
option.5 What would it be like to work at this university in this place as opposed to that one in another. Here we are referring to real persons – ourselves – and predicating imaginary scenarios of us. No matter how much information we gather for deliberation, at some point imagining tends to take
over.
The other familiar use of fiction is in creating thought experiments –
especially philosophical ones.6 Sally has been kidnapped by the friends of
music and hooked up to a famous violinist. Jim has been asked to kill one
Indian by the sadistic captain, which will purportedly save twenty. Sometimes it is claimed that thought experiments provide immediate justification
for drawing philosophical conclusions. I don’t think this is right. The violinist example is intended to elicit the proposition that Sally is permitted to
unhook herself from the violinist. Most people think as intended, but there
is nothing really wrong even at this point to pause and ask for justification
for this conclusion. Whether one pauses or not, it is really a justification that
makes the example relevant to its target: defending the permissibility of
some abortions. This is roughly the idea that Sally does not violate any right
of the violinist if she unhooks herself because she did not give permission to
be hooked up to him in the first place. So the example creates or elicits an
intuition the propositional justification of which gets plugged in to an argument. Something similar happens with the sadistic captain thought experiment.
Hypothetical scenarios and thought experiments are created for purely instrumental reasons of a cognitive nature. They lead us to propositions that
can get plugged into arguments to support the truth of their conclusions.
Do they do anything else? Do they have any function other than this truthsupporting one? Yes they do. Here are two other things they do. They provide information about the imaginer. That is when I respond to a thought
experiment or a hypothetical scenario generated in deliberation, I may learn
something about myself. Admittedly, this may cut against the use of thought
experiments to generate premises we will all assent to. But that is ok if intuition is to be followed by a request for justification. Second, they create conceptions of things. A conception is just a proposition or a set of them –
complete or incomplete (i.e. expressed by a closed or open sentence) of
which we are aware Conceptions can be assented to or not. The mere fact
that one becomes aware of propositions is not interesting, but some fictions
can make a proposition very salient – this is often the point of thought experiments, and others can pull a bunch of properties together to give a new,
5
6
There is a growing literature on deliberation, fiction and imagination. Some recent discussions include Gerrans/Kerrit 2010, Pappas 1997, Smith 2010, Stecker 1997, pp. 282-285.
There is a large literature connecting fiction with thought experiments. Some recent discussions include Camp 2009, Davies 2007, pp. 157-163, Ichikawa/Jarvis 2009.
Literature as Thought
15
general way of thinking about a topic. Scenarios generated in imagination in
deliberation may also do this.
Before turning to fictional artworks maybe we should mention the obvious fact that there are many items that are more paradigmatically works of
fiction than thought experiments or hypothetical scenarios – the latter of
which are not even works since they just exist in people’s heads. I’ll collect
these under the heading entertainments – but that hides the fact that they
span a large variety of forms and are pervasive at present: movies, TV
shows, video games, popular songs in various genres, popular written fiction
in equally many genres, etc. They are properly called entertainments because
that is clearly their chief function however they aim to accomplish this.
While their chief aim may be entertainment, they too present conceptions of
the subject matter, and they too intentionally or not have a cognitive component in virtue of this. The way they conceive love, grief, self sacrifice,
honor, etc, can have huge effects on the psyche of their fans. One can’t
lump them all together either. Some can pursue their chosen theme with a
finer perception or a more original thought. The line between them and art,
if one acknowledges it at all, is permanently blurred. I have not focused on
these because I wanted to find fictions that have a more explicit cognitive
purpose to see if they can be used to shed light on the cognitive value of
literature.
3. LITERATURE AND COGNITIVE VALUE
Literary works of fiction and other fictional artworks are typically objects of
aesthetic value – value derived from attending to the forms, qualities, or
meanings found in those objects and doing this for its own sake. Literary
works guide us in imagining a web of connected states of affairs in order to
create an aesthetic experience of them. We are meant to aesthetically enjoy
the imaginative experience of the fictional world, the conceptions they make
available and the way these are presented. So they are not like the thought
experiments or imaginary scenarios that are created mainly for their instrumental cognitive value. But that does not mean they have no cognitive
point. They often do. But the point is tied up in the aesthetic experience
they afford. We have to see how this works.
Let’s return to “The Bane of the Internet.” It is a story about two sisters.
One, who has left China and lives in New York, is the narrator. The other
still lives in a village in Sichuan, China. The story is about their long distance
relationship. They used to write letters to each other once a month. The
narrator would also write to her parents who live near her sister. Through
this period the sister in China forms a bad marriage, gets divorced, but begins a reasonably successful career as a graphic designer and buys her own