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Volume 51, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 0165-4322
  • E-ISSN: 3050-9947

Abstract

Abstract

In this essay, I examine the relationship between fiction and truth using two essays by C.S. Lewis. Human thinking and experiencing are mutually exclusive: thinking is abstract, experiencing is concrete. According to Lewis, it is possible to (almost) eliminate this split by enjoying a myth. My suggestion is that this applies not only to myth but also to other kinds of stories. Once we begin to detach the truth we see in a story from the story itself, an impoverishment occurs, in that we then necessarily lose the concreteness of experience. In addition, I wonder what touches us when we are impressed by a story. I suggest that it is not, or not only, its truth, but chiefly its meaning. To experience meaning we use our imagination; to know truth our reason. Thus we might explain why we can be touched by stories we do not recognize as ‘true’.

© Gert van de Wege
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2025-06-01
2025-08-20
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Keyword(s): C.S. Lewis; fiction; meaning; myth; truth
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