Abstract

The idea of an interview with Peter Lamarque and Derek Attridge on the cognitive value of literary fiction arose in the wake of an aesthetics course on the relation between literature and truth at the University of Antwerp. In Spring 2015 Peter Lamarque contributed to this course with the lecture “The Opacity of Narrative and Fine-grained Reading”. In Spring 2017 Derek Attridge elaborated his view on the relation between literature and truth in his lecture “The Event of Truth : Literature’s Singular Relation to Knowledge”. After each lecture, we had the occasion to discuss with the author the stakes of the debate and we were rapidly convinced by the many points of convergences between their views. We intended to explore these similarities and differences through a face to face interaction and were happy that both philosophers accepted our invitation for an interview. This interview was conducted by Arthur Cools and Leen Verheyen in York on 9 July 2018.