Matters of Fact and Fiction

A popular way to draw the line between fiction and nonfiction is in terms of facts: while works of nonfiction purport to tell the truth about the real world, works of fiction trade in the merely invented and imagined. This contrast between fiction and fact is familiar in popular culture and literary studies, and it also explains the philosophical focus on certain puzzles. What are we thinking about when we think about fictional characters? How can we make true claims about them? Why do we become emotionally involved with people who never existed? What can we learn from fictions if they are false? These questions are motivated by the assumption that fiction constitutes a domain essentially opposed to reality. In opposition to this familiar landscape, Matters of Fact and Fiction argues that the contrast between fiction and fact is fundamentally misguided. Instead, works of fiction are about reality, even if they invite us to imagine it differently from how it actually is. To make this argument, the book considers the reasons we might contrast fiction and fact. The book proposes a theory of fiction and nonfiction that allows for a more nuanced relationship to factual representation, offering an account of fictional truth and fictional worlds that focuses on cognitive processes rather than metaphysical differences in what stories are about. The book provides evidence that our understanding of fiction takes the real world as background and demonstrates that reference to real individuals and events in fiction plays an essential role in appreciation. Applying the framework to philosophical puzzles, the book argues that ordinary facts play an indispensable role in explaining how we imagine fictional characters, why we become emotionally engaged in fictional stories, and why we value fictional literature as a source of understanding.

Stacie Friend teaches philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and is an editor of the journal Analysis. She was the President of the British Society of Aesthetics from 2018 to 2024. Her research focuses on issues at the intersection of aesthetics, language, and mind, especially in relation to our engagement with fictional narratives. She has also engaged in interdisciplinary projects with researchers in psychology to investigate the ways we might learn from fictional literature and films.