Fiction and the Weave of Life

WE need more books like Fiction and the Weave of Life. Brief, coherent, readable, and bold, it avoids the digressive indulgences of many longer books, while retaining their ambition and importance. Gibson shows a rare fluency with the main trends in both contemporary literary theory and Anglo-American philosophy of literature, and throughout the book he uses insights and objections from different traditions to flesh out his argument. Gibson's aim is to restore humanism to a respectable place in the philosophy of literature by rethinking what humanism means. Humanism, according to Gibson, is the view ‘that there is an important link between literature and life, and that this link . . . accounts for one of the central reasons we value literature’ (pp. 16–17). Although many will doubt whether he achieves his aim, readers will certainly find his efforts rewarding. The book is divided into five chapters, and they build upon one another nicely. The first chapter lays out the sceptical case against humanism; the second presents Gibson's central argument for humanism; the third explains how his version of humanism could have real cognitive value; the fourth considers the issue of literary interpretation in a humanist light; and in the final chapter, Gibson compares humanism to its two chief rivals, panfictionalism and make-believe. The chapters are well organized, and, despite the brevity of the book, little is omitted

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Epistemology · Humanism · Interpretation (philosophy · Literature · Skepticism · Theology · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Ethics, Aesthetics, and Art · Philosophy