Reading your way to yourself

Abstract

Many readers of literature are convinced that engagement with it provides insight into the human condition, as well as helping them to become better people. This conviction turns out to be more controversial than it appears, and arguments as well as experimental studies have been marshalled supporting both sides of the debate. That debate has however focused on literature’s capacity to pro-vide knowledge of the world around us. Recent developments in Philosophy have instead highlighted distinctive features of understanding in contrast to knowledge, and in this essay I argue that a ne-glected aspect of literature’s epistemic power is its ability to provide understanding, and in particular self-understanding as we reflect on our reactions to the narratives that make up the core of our enga-gement with literature.