Psaila, Lucy Anne Isabel;
(2025)
Fiction, Imagination, and Value.
Masters thesis (M.Phil.Stud), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Novels often offer readers the experience of imaginatively engaging with a fictional character’s point of view. I use the phrase “imaginative engagement” as it presupposes the least about what the imagining involves, but it has been characterised as involving imaginatively “inhabiting” or “trying on” another’s perspective. Further, the experience of imaginatively engaging with a fictional character is often taken to be a valuable one. However, an explanation of why these experiences are valuable has received little attention. My aim is to provide that explanation. I will argue that the relevant imagining is best characterised as one which involves imagining an experience first-personally and as being had by another, as despite first appearances, this characterisation avoids common conceptual problems. Next, I argue that these imaginings can be valuable in the same way as when the point of view imaginatively engaged with is one the imaginer encounters “face-to-face”. Using that result, I present three explanations of the imagining’s value, starting with the tempting explanation that imaginative engagement is valuable because it is a way of acquiring phenomenal knowledge about what experiences are like. I argue that although this explanation is overambitious, the reader can nonetheless make improvements to their phenomenal knowledge. I then argue that these improvements provide the basis of two further explanations which have not been offered. The first is that imaginative engagement can improve the reader’s understanding of the world, by improving their understanding of how general statements about the “human condition” apply to particular cases. The second is that imaginative engagement with a fictional character can enable the reader to “take others to be other human beings” and take them as having their own intricately detailed and separately existing mental lives.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil.Stud |
| Title: | Fiction, Imagination, and Value |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10204575 |
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