“Tell me, how does it feel?” : Learning what it is like through literature

Abstract

Knowledge of what it is like has become important in many philosophical areas, such as debates about decision making, empathy, and oppression and epistemic injustice. A majority holds the view that this knowledge necessitates experience. However, in these and many other contexts the focus is not on knowledge of the phenomenal character of an atomic mental state (like a red-perception), but rather on experiences such as “becoming a parent”. These experiences are complex in the sense that the experiencing person is in a set or series of mental states with phenomenal qualities. This observation has an important impact: whilst we cannot gain knowledge of atomic mental states by means of testimony, testimony plays an important role in acquiring at least partial knowledge of what it is like for the experiencing person to have a complex experience. Imaginings of another person's complex experience consist of components analogous to the complex experience itself. If the imaginer has knowledge of what it is like of the components of the experience, she can put these components imaginatively together according to the experiencer's testimony. Finally, the chapter critically examines fictional literature's role in gaining knowledge of what it is like to experience something new.