Justification from Fictional Narratives

Philosophers generally accept that sound arguments or strong empirical evidence for a proposition can provide some justification for believing it. Can make-believe stories do the same? In this paper, I examine an argument that denies that they can, and I assess one popular response to this argument, which seeks to assimilate fictional narratives such as novels and plays to thought experiments. I argue that this analogy helps explain how fictional narratives can justify propositions at what I call the “micro” level but not at the “macro” level, where other factors such as thematic coherence and the intellectual character of the author typically come into play.