" Of Literature and Knowledge looks... like an important advance in this new and very
important subject... literature is about to become even more interesting."–Edward O. Wilson …

I argue that works of fiction function as thought experiments. Both literary fictions and
scientific thought experiments are imaginative constructions that advance understanding by …

Like works of literature, thought experiments present fictional narratives that prompt
reflection in their readers. Because of these and other similarities, a number of philosophers …

Most evolutionary treatments of narrative can be found within the broader field of the
evolutionary study of literature. This work, in turn, draws heavily on the meth ods and …

? We tell ourselves stories in order to live,? Joan Didion observed in The White Album. Why
is this? Michael Austin asks, in Useful Fictions. Why, in particular, are human beings, whose …

In this essay I refine and extend a defense of literary cognitivism (the view that works of
literary narrative fiction may serve as sources of knowledge–and not merely belief–in a way …

This book brings together researchers with cognitive-scientific and literary backgrounds to
present innovative research in all three variations on the possible interactions between …

Brian Boyd explains why we tell stories and how our minds are shaped to understand them.
After considering art as adaptation, Boyd examines Homer's Odyssey and Dr. Seuss's …

To speak of'thinking with literature'is to make the assumption that literature (in the broadest
sense) is neither a side-show nor a side-issue in human cultures: it belongs to the spectrum …

Literary criticism produces some sort of knowledge on a discourse that is already taken to
produce some sort of knowledge, to know, literature. Both discipline and object may be said …