Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation and Imagination

Stock, Kathleen

ISBN 10: 0198849761 / ISBN 13: 9780198849766

Published by Oxford University Press, 2019

About this Item

Seller Inventory # mon0003661317

Bibliographic Details

Title: Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation and ...

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Publication Date: 2019

Binding: paperback

Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis:

Only Imagine offers a theory of fictional content or, as it is sometimes known, 'fictional truth'.
The theory of fictional content Kathleen Stock argues for is known as 'extreme intentionalism'; the idea that the fictional content of a particular work is equivalent to exactly what the author of the work intended the reader to imagine. Historically, this sort of view has been highly unpopular. Literary theorists and philosophers alike have poured scorn upon it. The first half of this book attempts to argue that it should in fact be taken very seriously as an adequate account of fictional truth: better, in fact, than many of its more popular rivals. The second half explores various explanatory benefits of extreme intentionalism for other issues in the philosophy of fiction and imagination. Namely, can fiction give us reliable knowledge? Why do we 'resist' imagining certain fictions? What, in fact, is a fiction? And, how should the imagination be characterised?

Review:

For its breadth, systematic argument, and deliberate ground-up reconstruction of its concepts of imagination and truth-in-fiction, Stock's book should be read by anyone concerned with what determines the contents of stories. (Jonathan Gilmore, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews)