The Novel as a Source for Self-Knowledge
We take ourselves to learn things from reading novels. Moreover, we do not just take ourselves to learn how to acquire empathy, or feel the right thing in the right way, we also take ourselves to acquire beliefs that are true, and well supported. This is puzzling because authors of novels have an almost unconstrained licence to make things up—their work is not constrained by the truth. This chapter argues that our capacity directly to read off truths from fiction, and the power of the novelist to testify to truths, is limited. It argues that there are, however, more indirect ways of coming to truths through fiction. Nevertheless, even in those cases, the author’s power to manipulate should make the epistemically virtuous person proceed carefully. The chapter concludes by showing that the author can, however, use that power to manipulate to provide the reader with lessons in such care.