Empathy, Fiction, and Non-Fiction

Matravers, Derek (2024). Empathy, Fiction, and Non-Fiction. In: Petraschka, Thomas and Werner, Christiana eds. Empathy's Role in Understanding Persons, Literature, and Art. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. New York, USA: Routledge, pp. 158–173.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003333739-11

Abstract

Philosophical discussions of the role of empathy in literature focus on the nature of our empathizing with fictional characters. This chapter argues that the discussion is ill-founded; that it rests on a confusion that bedevils philosophical work in this area: namely, arguing for differences between our interactions between fiction and non-fiction by appealing to differences between our interactions between fiction and face-to-face encounters. It is plausible that there is a difference between our empathizing with represented characters and our empathizing with people met face-to-face, but – or so this chapter argues – it is a great deal less plausible that there are systematic differences between our empathizing with one sort of represented character (fictions) and another sort of represented character (non-fictions). In the process of arguing for this conclusion, various arguments by Thomas Petraschka and Peter Lamarque are considered. A sceptical view is taken of the claim that there is a fundamental division of narratives into two sorts: non-fiction which informs and fiction which entertains. The proposed alternative is that all (relevant) narratives have the same primary function: to transport readers to another world.

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