Allegory

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Allegory
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Cognitivism

• Fictions assert truths
• Fictions justify truths
• Truth is aesthetically valuable

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Allegory

• Allegory has been overlooked
• Cognitivism is plausible

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Sirridges Argument

• All happy families resemble each other, but
  each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
• Reflections are asserted
• Reflections are implied
• Implied is too vague
• Symbolic language

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Meaning

• Meaning is shared
• Allegorical meaning is shared
• Meaning is novel
• Allegorical meaning is novel

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Allegory Represents

• That something salient
• is similar
• in a salient respect
• to the story

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The Story

• Same story, same meaning
• The story is shared
• The story may be novel

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Similarity

• Compositional appearances
• Similarity is novel
• Similarity isnt shared
• Natural similarities

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Salience

• Salience solves coordination problems
• Sharing is a coordination problem
• Salience depends on other features

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Salience

• Context affects salience
• The Crucible
• The narration affects salience
• Comrade in Animal Farm
• Coca-Cola advertisements in film
• The Tale of the Bull and the Ass

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Presupposition

• Galileo regrets becoming an astronomer
• Approximately common beliefs
• Most similarities are presupposed

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The Moral of the Story

• Whats not presupposed is asserted
• Fictions do assert truths

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Objections

• The Hare and the Tortoise
• Abstractness

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Cognitivism

• Fiction asserts truths
• Fiction justifies truths
• Truth is aesthetically valuable

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The Epistemic Argument

• literary works do not employ the scientific
  techniques necessary for the establishing of
  facts (Hospers)
• Lots of problems
• Still a challenge

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The Concept Gym

• Fictions are like thought experiments
• Justification is conceptual
• Separates assertion from justification

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Analogy

• Allegory is like analogy
• Analogy uses similarity
• Presupposed similarities are premises
• Asserted similarities are conclusions

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Objections

• Analogical reasoning is bad
• Valid analogies are non-fictive

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Cognitivism

• Fiction asserts truths
• Fiction justifies truths
• Truth is aesthetically valuable

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The Aesthetic Argument

• Literary critics dont evaluate truth
• Why does this matter?
• Literary practice is social
• Conflates critical with literary practice

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Truth has Aesthetic Value

• Maths in Flatland
• Women in Flatland
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

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Conclusion

• Fiction asserts truths
• Fiction justifies truths
• Truth is aesthetically valuable

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