Fiction, Truth and Method

Abstract

How does fiction help to build a consensual narrative of the time we live? How necessary is this narrative and how close it should resemble the reality? Since its inception, fiction can state and frame ideas and concepts through the refutation of the established aesthetical, ethical, hermeneutical, ontological and political consensus. This inverted logics that Aristotle regarded so dangerous is in fact the ultimate capability of the fictional narrative to capture the reality in vivo and to describe it with its full colours. However, it is undeniable that this intrinsically disruptive strength can be particularly unsettling. The very imagination that turns Gregor Samsa into an insect and transforms David Kepesh into a huge breast can very well distort reality and pretend that a lost election have been rigged and won by a lot. How can one be sure that a culture is mature enough in exercising fact verification and in analysing reality with scientific tolls that it is shielded against ideological, political or religious fictions? How to ensure that society has means to deconstruct distortions and lies engendered by social agents with specific interests? We believe that just a blend of objective means of fact verification, scientific analysis and an uncommitted ethical bond with truth can ensure that society is not misled by lies and misrepresentations of reality.