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Thought Experiments, Fiction, and Literary Genres
Tadej Todorović, 2017, master's thesis

Abstract: The thesis explores the relationship between thought experiments and fiction. It argues that thought experiments should be looked at as a sub-category of fiction, as this would enable fiction to be regarded as a source of knowledge and simultaneously preserve the special status of thought experimenting in philosophy. Furthermore, the thesis explores how the notion of thought experiments as a sub-category of fiction can illuminate and resolve certain issues in the classification of the literary genre utopia. Namely, it focuses on how to differentiate between eutopias, anti-utopias, and dystopias. By splitting the category of thought experiments into constructive and destructive thought experiments, it shows that eutopias can be perceived as being built upon constructive thought experiments, and anti-utopias and dystopias as being built upon destructive thought experiments, which suggests that dystopia is a sub-category of anti-utopia. Moreover, the developed theory is tested by showing how Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Atwood’s Maddaddam series, examples of anti-utopias and dystopias, are built upon destructive thought experiments, which substantiates our claim extensively.
Keywords: literary cognitivism, thought experiments, fiction, utopia, eutopia, dystopia, anti-utopia
Published in DKUM: 19.10.2017; Views: 1366; Downloads: 208
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