Philosophy 101

Ask A Philosopher has received its first question. Yeah!:

I enjoy reading novels, but I have often wondered, what is the purpose of reading fiction? Yes, in general it is because it gives people enjoyment, but why?

This is a great question and I do have some general thoughts that might be helpful in answering it.

First, let’s consider what a novel is. A novel is a longer and often complex fictional narrative usually involving multiple characters and a series of events involving these characters. In this way, a novel can make abstract ideas about the human condition very concrete. That is, a novel can show how an idea translates into specific actions and events of specific individuals. For example, Frankenstein is a novel about the dangers inherent the modern quest for scientific knowledge. It translates that idea by telling the story of an overly ambitious scientist and his monstrous creation which ends up killing every person the scientist cares about.

Now, I am not a fiction writer but I presume that many a novelist probably does not start out with an abstract philosophical idea; maybe he just wants to tell a story. But that is a question of his process of writing; he does pick the stories he tells and the way he tells them for a reason: because those stories fundamentally embody ideas that the writer wants to discuss.

So, if the writer wants to discuss or perhaps even put forth his views about certain ideas, why not write about them in the form of a treatise or some other nonfiction form? Well, generally people understand and comprehend better those ideas which are concretized in some way. Even philosophical treatises are often not as compelling or even easily understood without the occasional example.

Why is that? The answer lies in the process of how we acquire knowledge. Our experience of reality is rooted in single, concrete instances. For instance, we do not directly (that is, via our senses) experience apple-ism; rather we directly experience only particular instances of apples. In our minds we subsume those particular instances of apples into concepts. Concept formation is essentially information management; we cannot hold all instances of apples in our heads at one time, so we economize by forming the concept of apple. Same, although much more complex, goes for much more complex concepts such as justice. In this way, we can acquire vast amount of knowledge of great complexity.

Back to the novelist. A writer, as I said, wants to convey ideas. Most often, he wants to convey ideas he deems true. For an idea to be true it needs to correspond to reality. But that correspondence may not be immediately graspable to the reader if the idea is very abstract, that is, if the process of abstraction that led to the idea is very long and complicated. Therefore, a successful novelist–one who can actually gain an audience–conveys his abstract ideas in such a way that the reader can trace the abstract idea back to its correspondence in reality. The most common way of doing that is by translating the abstract idea into particular experiences that many readers have or at least can relate to in some way. That way a writer makes his abstract ideas more palpable, and also often more convincing.

This is why, I think, people enjoy reading novels. By relating to the novel’s characters and/or recognizing similar events in their own lives, people can come to understand the ideas of a novel and can recognize some basis for those ideas in reality. This is even true for a science fiction novel. It might be set in some futuristic space age where humans can alter their bodies and minds in ways not possible in reality, but the characters still often have emotions or issues that are part of the human experience. Or take Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings; we all know witches and wizards do not really exist, and that magic is impossible. But we also know that the struggle between good and evil is a very fundamental and ubiquitous one in human life.

This is another aspect of why we enjoy novels. The most powerful novels, I think, are those which create entire worlds we want to live in, with characters we greatly admire and aspire to be. At heart, most of us want the human lot to be improved. So, a novel not only concretizes ideas, it can also depict achievable ideals. To many readers, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are such novels because they describe what kind of human being is necessary to achieve the wealth and prosperity enjoyed by many today, and, by contrast, what threatens it.

Further, while a novel can have right ideas and wrong ideas, that is also an aspect that can add to our enjoyment of a novel. A good novel gets us thinking and arguing about those ideas. It serves us intellectual food. And, who doesn’t like a good bite? But what about what some consider to be trashy novels, like the Harlequin Romances? Well, just as with food, some like fast food and some haute cuisine. As long as there is both…

So, to summarize, we enjoy reading novels because they give us the opportunity to experience and ponder ideas that express in a concretized way something real about ourselves and our lives. Novels stimulate our minds because of the ideas they represent, and in that way they give us an opportunity to enjoy life in a yet another way.

Those are my thoughts. I am curious, what novels do you enjoy, and why?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 11:17 pm and is filed under Epistemology, Human Nature, Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.