In defence of fictional examples

Abstract

This paper provides a novel defence of the philosophical use of examples drawn from literature, by comparison with thought experiments and real cases. Such fictional examples, subject to certain constraints, can play a similar role to real cases in establishing the generality of a social phenomenon. Furthermore, the distinct psychological vantage point offered by literature renders it a potent resource for elucidating intricate social dynamics. This advantage of the internal insight that fictional examples can (though do not always) possess helps explain their prevalence in certain areas of philosophy, such as ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of emotion, in which we can require a more precise characterization of a subject's mental states. While the respective advantages of fictional examples, real cases, and thought experiments clearly depend on many contextual factors, the former have an important, and arguably underappreciated, role to play in philosophical inquiry.