Can	literary	fiction	be	suppositional	reasoning? GILBERT	PLUMER Test	Development,	Law	School	Admission	Council,	USA	(retired) plumerge@gmail.com Suppositional reasoning can seem spooky. Suppositional reasoners allegedly (e.g.) "extract knowledge from the sheer workings of their own minds" (Rosa), even where the knowledge is synthetic a posteriori. Can literary fiction pull such a rabbit out of its hat? Where P is a work's fictional "premise," some hold that some works reason declaratively (supposing P, Q), imperatively (supposing P, do Q), or interrogatively	(supposing	P,	Q?).	True, I	will	argue,	although only	with	much	qualification. KEYWORDS: argument in fiction, didacticism, literary cognitivism, premise-based reasoning, suppositional reasoning,	thought	experiments 1.	INTRODUCTION Some come close to claiming that literary fiction can be suppositional reasoning.	For instance,	Green (2010,	p.	360)	says that	Huxley's	Brave New	World	"can	plausibly	be	construed	as	taking	the	form	of	a	reductio ad	absurdum,"	which	he	states	as	follows: 1 Suppose	a	society	were	organized	along	the	lines	dictated by	hedonistic	utilitarianism. 2 In such a	world, people	would lack freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and the ability to cultivate the capacities	for	critical	reflection	on	their	surroundings. 3 Therefore,	in	such	a	world,	life	would	be	intolerable	to	all but those who have lost the capacity for the activities mentioned	in	premise	(2). 4 Therefore	such	a	world	would	be	unacceptable. 5 Therefore,	hedonistic	utilitarianism	is	an	incorrect	theory of	how	to	achieve	happiness. Comparatively speaking, suppositional reasoning is a puzzling orphan	child	in	argument	studies	and	epistemology.	Authors	noting	the 279 inattention	range	at least	from	Fisher	thirty	years	ago	(1989,	p.	401ff.) to	Rosa	(2019,	p.	157;	cf.,	e.g.,	Green,	2000,	p.	377	and	Dogramaci,	2016, p.	889).	On	the	other	hand,	suppositional	reasoning	is	well-established in	formal	logic,	particularly	as	conditional	proof,	the	core	idea	of	which is: 'Suppose p. It follows that q [1 and 2 in the reductio above]. Therefore, if	p then	q'.	But	even this	evokes	a	vexed	question,	viz., the extent to	which a piece of suppositional reasoning can	be analyzed in terms of a conditional and vice versa. For instance, statements of the form 'if p then q' have truth-values, whereas statements of the form 'supposing	p,	q'	may	appear	to	lack	truth-values.	Barnett	(2006,	esp.	pp. 535-536) argues that such (compound) suppositional statements are true if p and q are each true, false if p is true and q is false, yet in contrast to (e.g.) the	material conditional, in the two cases	where	p is false, the statement cannot be evaluated because evaluating it would amount to determining "whether [q]	while supposing not just that [p] but also that it is not the case that [p]." On this suppositional understanding of the conditional, the so-called paradoxes of material implication	disappear	and	a	door	is	open	to	logics	alternative	to	classical logic. In	fact,	suppositional	reasoning	can	seem	downright	spooky,	and it may be no accident that deriving knowledge from fiction can seem equally spooky. Suppositional reasoners allegedly "extract knowledge from	the	sheer	workings	of	their	own	minds"	(Rosa,	p.	157),	even	where the knowledge is synthetic a posteriori (Balcerak Jackson & Balcerak Jackson, 2013). The idea is that reasoning itself-in the form of suppositional	reasoning-might	be	a	source	of	knowledge	distinct	from reasoning understood as the means of transmitting knowledge from premises to conclusion.	An	example	Rosa	gives (pp.	156-157,	170; the Balcerak Jacksons cite a similar case, pp. 116, 120) of putatively "a priori" knowledge is: 'Suppose that Lucy is a feminist philosopher. It follows that some feminists are philosophers. Therefore, if Lucy is a feminist	philosopher,	then	some	feminists	are	philosophers.'	(One	does wonder	about the	extent to	which the	appearance	of the	proper	name 'Lucy'	here	undermines	the	a	priority	claim,	but	never	mind.)	In	order	to reason in this	way, one need not have any justification that Lucy is a feminist philosopher (nor any justification that some feminists are philosophers); indeed, one might believe that she is not, and have justification	that	she	is	not,	but	be	supposing	that	she	is	'for	the	sake	of argument'. Thus, here it cannot be that knowledge or justification is transmitted from	premises to	conclusion, in	contrast to	beliefs	arrived at by nonsuppositional reasoning, wherein the premises are taken or asserted	to	be	true. Can	suppositional reasoning	be	a	source	of less trivial-seeming knowledge?	The	Balcerak	Jacksons	(p.	120)	propose	a	non	a	priori	case: 280 A	human-cannonball	has	sustained	an	injury	in	his	profession	and	wants to	prevent	a	reoccurrence.	He	asks	himself,	"if	the	stage	lighting	rigs	had been	a	bit	higher,	would	I	have	landed	in	the	net?"	In	his	imagination	he visually models the scenario with the rigs higher, and finds that he safely lands in the net, not on the rigs again. He concludes with an affirmative	answer	to	his	question. But,	you	say,	this is just	an	ordinary 'thought	experiment'.	That is	right,	yet	part	of the	aim	of	philosophers like	Rosa	and	the	Balcerak Jacksons	is	to	argue	that	it	is	quite	mundane	for	reasoning	alone	to	be	a source of knowledge or justification. Now	many contend that at least some works of fictional literature constitute a class of thought experiments (e.g.,	Carroll,	2002;	Elgin,	2007;	Swirski,	2007;	Mikkonen, 2013; Green, 2010, 2016, 2017). Be that as it may (next section), if works of fictional literature can holistically exhibit reasoning, our question is whether that reasoning can significantly, not purely, be suppositional reasoning. It does not matter for our purposes should their	conclusions	be	based	on	premise-beliefs	as	well	as	suppositions. 2.	THOUGHT	EXPERIMENTS	AND	LITERARY	FICTION Tooming (2018, pp. 685-692) distinguishes between "mere supposition," presumably as in Green's statement above of Huxley's reductio, and	supposition that requires	mental imagery that "matches" the	supposed	propositions(s),	presumably	as in the	human	cannonball example. A critical question is whether cases like the latter actually involve reasoning at all, as opposed to something on the order of imaginative engagement. Could imagination function like perception here in giving immediate prima facie justification for believing that things would be/are the way they appear to be in imagination/perception?	If	even	these	cases	do	not	involve	reasoning,	it might	be	less	clear	how	works	of	fictional	literature	could.	For	one	thing, these	works are regarded, in their essence, as 'invitations to imagine' (vs.	believe).	The	Balcerak	Jacksons	plausibly	argue	(pp.	115-122)	that the human cannonball kind of case exhibits two 'hallmarks of reasoning'.	The first is that there is	a "content	gap" to	bridge	between the first and final	mental states in the thought experiment. Following Williamson (2007, ch. 5), they propose that "we evaluate a counterfactual	conditional	by	'developing'	its	antecedent	in	certain	ways via	mental	simulation,	and	then	check	to	see	if	the	consequent	is	true	in the	simulation"	(p.	121).	In	contrast,	there	is	ordinarily	no	content	gap to cross in having a perception	with a certain content and "forming a belief with the same content" (p. 119), e.g., that there is a red circle. Second,	it	is	appropriate	to	subject	the	transitions	that	bridge	the	gap	to "epistemic appraisal and criticism" (p. 122). It is typically a propos to 281 ask a thought experimenter to give reasons or justification for the proposed result, whereas it is normally otiose to ask one to give justification	for	a	perceptual	judgement	(e.g.,	that	we	are	approaching	a log	in	the	middle	of	the	road)	other	than	it	looks	that	way. As opposed to fiction on the order of 'bodice rippers', pulp fiction, and the like, it is generally held that literary fiction is more nuanced; it has a greater richness and complexity of character development, plot, fine description, etc., and also somehow shows insight into human affairs. Is such insight achieved by holistically exhibiting	suppositional	reasoning?	That	is	our	question,	so	our	focus	is on	literary	fiction.	Now	certainly,	the	reasoning	in	thought	experiments, if anything,	would be suppositional in nature. But there are problems with regarding a	work of fictional literature as a thought experiment. For	example,	within	science	the	epistemic	value	of	thought	experiments is regarded as second best (or worse) to real experiments, but there could	be	no	counterpart	to	this	within	literary	fiction.	Moreover,	there	is an	inverse	relationship	between	parameters	of	evaluation.	Factors	that make a thought experiment good (e.g., straightforwardness and precision)	tend	to	make	a	story	bad	(lack	of	nuance	and	subtlety),	and vice	versa.	Egan	mentions	this	(2016,	p.	147),	and	that in	contrast	to	a literary fiction, "the purpose of a thought experiment is exhausted in making or contributing to an argument"; its aesthetic qualities are basically	irrelevant,	as	is	indicated	by	the	fact	that	once	"we	remember how a thought experiment runs,	we have no reason to reread it" (pp. 142-143).	For	instance,	the	power	and	cogency	of	a	good	philosophical thought experiment may derive from its being a close analogical argument, not from any embedded fictional narrative being	believable like a novel, play, or short story; consider, e.g., Thompson's (1971) celebrated, though hardly believable, thought experiment involving a famous violinist plugged into your body for life support. This points toward perhaps the most important difference for our purposes: indirectness	is	not	a	distinctive	feature	of	thought	experiments,	but	it	is for	any	global	argument	in	a	work	of	literary	fiction. 3.	DIDACTICISM	AND	INDIRECTNESS If a work of literary fiction has a global argument, why should it be indirect? The answer is that otherwise the work would be didactic, which is a	distinctive fault for fictional literature.	However, given that the term has a negative connotation, didacticism is a flaw to some degree no matter where it appears, and this can lead to confusion. Consider	Repp's	view.	He	says	(2012,	pp.	271,	283): 282 Works of literature that are too overtly instructive are commonly faulted for being didactic...if we [as literary cognitivists] value literature for the instruction it affords,	why would we ever object to overt instruction?...I propose the following answer: overt instruction can arouse suspicion of intellectual vices in the author, such as intellectual arrogance, dogmatism, and prejudice, which can make the lessons the author seeks to convey less rationally acceptable...	Didacticism on	my	view	is	just	as	objectionable	in	works	of	computational biology	and	cinematic	history	as in literary fictions	because it is	primarily	an	epistemic	rather	than	aesthetic	fault. Repp tries to	assimilate	didacticism in literary fiction	with	didacticism in nonfiction (whether literary or not) as manifesting the same epistemic	flaw.	But	although	works	of	nonfiction	such	as	computational biology	and	cinematic	history	could	be	didactically	flawed	because	they are	marked by arrogance, dogmatism, or prejudice, they could not be "too overtly instructive" any more than an instruction manual could. After	all,	being	instructive	is	their	express	purpose	and	raison	d'etre.	By definition,	works	of	nonfiction	aim	at	achieving	veracity	and	conveying it;	they	attempt	to	stick	to	the	facts	or	tell	what	actually	happened. In contrast, fictional works, broadly speaking, at most aim at verisimilitude.	Repp	is	right	that	literary	fictions	are	didactic	if	they	are "too	overtly instructive," yet	he	does	not appear to see	why.	Trite as it may	be	to	be	reminded,	fictional	literature's	significant	cognitive	value, if any, is conveyed by showing insight into human affairs via the character	descriptions,	narration	of	events,	etc.,	not	by	telling	it-which would make the work didactic. As this truism suggests, none of this showing	need	be	intentional	or	"lessons	the	author	seeks	to	convey"	(pace Repp	and	others,	e.g.,	Gibson,	2009,	sec.	II;	see	my	2017,	p.	152ff.)	Repp (p.	274)	says	that	a	literary	fiction's	cognitive	value	can	depend	"on	the extent	to	which	it	provides	'warrant'	or	legitimate	grounds	for	accepting the	lesson."	But	he	has	the	wrong	model.	Literary	fiction	is	not	science, yet he tries to assimilate the two. Compare Swirski (2007, p. 4),	who claims	that	"historical	novels	transmit	knowledge	of	history	much	in	the same manner that historians transmit it." If this were so, then there would	not	be	the	following	sharp	asymmetry:	For	all	we	know	without history, anything in an historical novel could be invented. History is needed	to	arbitrate,	yet	historical	novels	do	not	arbitrate	history. From	these	considerations,	we	see	that	literary	fiction	cannot	be suppositional	reasoning,	or	any	kind	of	reasoning, in	a	straightforward way; if it were, it would be didactic 'overt instruction', which undermines	its	status	as	literary	fiction	and	makes	it	akin	to	philosophy or	science.	Thus,	the	global	argument,	if	any,	in	a	work	of	literary	fiction would have to be somehow uncovered. No doubt fictional narrative 283 generally makes a supposition (commonly called a 'premise') and determines what would, or could very well, follow. For instance, Golding's	Lord of the Flies considers	what	would happen if a group of English	schoolboys	were	stranded	on	a	deserted jungle island	and	had to	fend	for	themselves	and	remake	society.	But	these	are	primarily	'real' and	probabilistic	(mostly	causal)	consequences	imagined	by	the	author; generally,	it	is	only	with	critical	interpretation1	that	there	is	a	transition to more logical or conceptual-hence, argumentative-consequences. This	means	that	if	certain	works	of	fictional	literature	holistically	exhibit suppositional reasoning and thereby can constitute a source of knowledge (if the reasoning is good), they do so indirectly	within the context	of	critical	interpretation	and	all	the	vagaries	that	can	bring.	Egan (2016,	p.	147)	pushes	such	a	point,	contending	that	"we	may	be	able	to extract an argument against Stalinism from Animal Farm, but...our argumentative	criticism	of	Animal	Farm	would	at	best	target	claims	we have	come	to	entertain	because	we	read	Animal	Farm,	not	Animal	Farm itself." For perspective, notice how the suppositional-reasoning approach differs from another possible argumentative approach to regarding fictional literature as a potential source of knowledge. Elsewhere	I	argue	(most	completely	and	recently	in	Plumer,	2017)	that we	have	a	basic	intuitive	grasp	of	human	nature	and	the	principles	that govern	it.	A	literary	fiction	may	evoke	these	principles	in	its	storytelling, which	makes	the	narrative	believable	if	it	is	otherwise	coherent.	So	the believability of a fictional story implicates that there is truth there, which	amounts	to	a	transcendental	argument,	and	for	the	appropriately reflective auditor, this contact with truth becomes knowledge.2 Here, critical interpretation-and	with it the	possibility	of	error,	of	course- enters the picture in reflectively trying to determine	which truths of human	nature	are	implicated	by	the	work's	believability,	not	that	there are	truths	there.	On	the	suppositional	approach,	critical	interpretation	is 1My	use	of	the	term	'critical interpretation'	more	or less	conforms	to	Gibson's (2006, p. 444): "Rather than directed at the recovery of linguistic meaning, critical interpretation marks a process of articulating patterns of salience, value, and significance in the worlds literary works bring to view. That is, critical	interpretation	marks	the	moment	of	our	engagement	with	the	world	of the	work,	and	it	has	as	its	goal	the	attempt	to	bring	to	light	what	we	find	of consequence	in	this	world." 2This	satisfies	the	thesis	of	Literary	Cognitivism	(LC)-shortly	to	be	discussed in	the	next	section	below-because	believability	with	respect	to	fiction	is	quite a	different	thing	than	it	is	with	respect	to	nonfiction.	If	a	work	of	nonfiction	is believable, it is	worthy	of	belief,	but	the	term	cannot	mean	this	with	respect	to fiction. 284 necessary to display the suppositional reasoning,	which then	must be determined to be good reasoning, before any knowledge ensues. Conversely,	for	a	believable	fiction	without	critical	interpretation,	on	the suppositional approach all you may relevantly know is the work's 'premise',	whereas	on	the	transcendental	view	you	know	that	as	well	as that	the	psychosocial	principles	the	work	evokes	are	mostly	true. 4.	THE	SUPPOSITIONAL	REASONING	MODEL Green may be the most ardent proponent of the view that there is "literary	fiction	that	conforms	to	our	suppositional	model,"	a	model	not presented	merely	in	the	guise	of	thought	experimentation	(2016,	p.	293; see	also	his	2010,	2017,	and	forthcoming,	sec.	IV).	Where	P	is	a	work's fictional 'premise',	Green	holds	(2016,	p.	289)	that	some	works	reason declaratively (supposing P, Q), imperatively (supposing P, do Q), or interrogatively	(supposing	P,	Q?).	Of	course,	premise-beliefs	(see	section 1 above) may enter the picture, and "it is normally appropriate to appeal to a body of background knowledge to aid our reasoning" (p. 290), so the suppositional reasoning need not be pure. Green sees conformity to the suppositional model as the primary way that the thesis	of "literary	cognitivism,"	as	he	construes it, is satisfied.	He	casts this	thesis	as "Literary	Cognitivism	[LC]:	Literary	fiction	can	be	a	source	of	knowledge in	a	way	that	depends	crucially	on	its	being	fictional" (2010,	p.	352;	2016,	p.	286;	2017,	p.	48;	quoted	approvingly	by	Maioli 2014, p. 625). Literary cognitivists and anti-cognitivists are all concerned with fiction literature because, by definition, there is no question	that	nonfictional	literature	(e.g.,	an	historical	or	bibliographical work)	may	yield	knowledge.	In	LC	Green	tries	to	say	what	is	special	or distinctive	about	knowledge	arising from fictional literature.	However, Green	never	clearly	spells	out	the	idea	of	dependence	in	LC,	although	he distinguishes LC from the stronger thesis (he does not endorse) that "the knowledge literary fiction provides is not available through any other means such as journalism, memoir, or research in social psychology,"	a	thesis	that	might	be	called	"literary	cognitive	uniqueness" [LCU] (2016,	p.	286n4). In	LCU, the	notion	of	dependence is the	usual idea	of	cannot	exist	without. I	propose	that	an	adequate fleshing	out	of the	idea	of	dependence	in	LC	is	that in	the	path	or	route	to	knowledge from the fictional work, the work's fictionality is integral (not necessarily	that	there	is	no	other	path	to	the	knowledge,	as	per	LCU).	It is because or partly because of its fictionality that the work yields knowledge. 285 Green initially considers cases of suppositional reasoning or "suppositions for the sake of argument" in "everyday life" by way of preparing the ground for considering it in literary fiction. His first example (declarative) is: "Suppose we take the 3:17 train to Union Station. Then we can catch the 4:35 from there to the coast, getting there	in	time	for	the	ferry	unless	there	is	some	delay..." He	claims	that "suppositions such as the proposition that	we take the 3:17 to Union Station	are	a	species	of	fictions"	(2016,	p.	287).	But	this	seems	confused. The proposition that we take the 3:17 to Union Station could be a species	of	fiction	only	if	we	do	not	take	that	train.	Now,	before	3:17,	all we	know	is	that	it	is	a	future	fact	in	the	actual	world	or	it	is	not.	Before 3:17, it is a 'counterfactual' in only the weak temporal sense that it obtains in	neither	the	present	nor	the	past in	the	actual	world.	Yet	the 'premises' of literary fictions are paradigmatically metaphysical counterfactual possibilities, that is, they obtain in merely possible worlds-not	obtaining	ever	in	the	actual	world. Continuing with suppositional reasoning in "everyday life," Green	illustrates	the	directive	structure	of	'supposing	P,	do	Q':	"Imagine animated demonstrations of how to change an automobile's oil filter...the animation, albeit fictional, shows how to do something" (2016, p. 288). Considered as showing how to engage in a type of activity,	the	animation	had	better	not	be	fictional	or	else	it	would	purvey falsehoods and misdirect. Considered as depicting a token of that activity type, it could be fictional and the dependence of the learning engendered	conform	to	the	idea	of	dependence	in	LC	(though	not	in	LCU of	course,	because	a	video	of	a	real	oil	filter	change	could	be	used). Turning to cases of literary fiction, in the directive vein Green interprets Flaubert's Madame Bovary as "showing how to justify adultery to	oneself" (2016,	p.	293). I	do	not see	a	problem	relevant to our concerns, given that the novel's 'premise' is a metaphysical counterfactual,	although	his	reading	may	be	a	little	obtuse	since	Emma's adultery ends in misery for pretty much all concerned. On the other hand, as	we have seen (section 1), Green understands	Huxley's	Brave New	World	(declaratively)	as	working	out	the	negative	implications	of	a supposition in	the	manner	of	a loose	reductio	ad	absurdum.	A	problem arises	in	satisfying	the	dependence	requirement	in	LC	if	the	supposition could simply be an epistemic possibility ('suppose	X,	which for all	we know,	occurs	sometime')	or	probabilistic	(e.g., 'suppose	X,	which	could very	well	happen'),	not	metaphysical	counterfactual	supposition,	that	is, distinctively fictional supposition. It is disputable whether	Brave New World's	supposition	that	society	is	"organized	along	the	lines	dictated	by hedonistic	utilitarianism"	is	actually	true	of	a	society	somewhere,	or	at some	time	was	or	probably	will	be	true.	The	same	applies	(e.g.) to the supposition of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale that women become 286 extremely subjugated under a	U.S. totalitarian theocracy, especially as concerns	reproduction.	The	point	is,	one	cannot	say	that	a	work	imparts knowledge	(partly)	because	of	its	fictionality	qua	counterfactuality	if	in key	respects	its	counterfactuality	is	not	evident. It might be objected that whether a literary fiction's key supposition is counterfactual may vary with how specifically it is formulated.	Brave	New	World's supposition could be cast as including (e.g.)	that	there	are	no	visible	signs	of	aging	in	the	World	State,	Soma	is the state-distributed hedonistic drug, there are biweekly and staterequired	orgies,	hatcheries	produce	human	embryos-all	in	contrast	to natural	processes	outside	the	World	State	in	Savage	Reservation	in	New Mexico. Probably not all of this is needed to make the supposition a metaphysical	counterfactual.	Determining	the	right	level	of	generality	is no	doubt	an	important	and	difficult	question,	perhaps	even	intractable. Nevertheless, it	may be that the	more the focus is on	particulars that make a supposition a nonactual possibility, the less likely it is that knowledge or understanding pertaining to the actual world could be gained. Otherwise, Green's formulating the entire reductio he sees in Huxley's	work	in	fully	general	terms	would	appear	to	be	accidental. Green regards Stephen King's Salem's Lot as having "an interrogative	dimension" in	that it	compels	"readers	to	ask	themselves whether there	are	any	epistemic situations in	which rationality	would oblige them to give up their naturalistic scruples and believe in the supernatural" (2016, p. 292). This kind of case raises two general concerns.	First,	even	assuming	that	the	question	posed	is	a	good	one	or "helps to build a framework in which an intellectual advance can be made" (Green 2017, p. 51), it seems that what would enhance our knowledge	or	make	the	advance	is	the	answer. It is	not	clear	that	good suppositional reasoning in the interrogative form could support LC. Second, the	example	here	raises	the issue	of impossible fictions, that is, ones that involve a logical or metaphysical (not merely a physical) impossibility. Rather than interrogatively, Green (2017, pp. 57-58) considers Stoker's Dracula declaratively, and takes it as similarly supposing that its	main protagonists,	who are "quite rational people," are "faced with empirical evidence undermining...naturalism." If this story showed, as Green appears to suggest, that "commitment to rationality does not by itself guarantee a commitment to naturalism," then the story would provide that knowledge partly because of the story's	metaphysical counterfactuality. (Green	would	say	LCU is	not	at issue since as an alternate route to that possible knowledge, he cites Cleanthes'	arguments	in	Hume's	Dialogues	Concerning	Natural	Religion.) However,	it	seems	that	such	a	knowledge	claim	is	disputable	on	logical grounds by making the appropriate conceptual connections between the	scientific	method,	rationality,	and	naturalism	(e.g.,	a	commitment	to 287 naturalism is a condition of the possibility of the scientific method, broadly construed, which in turn defines rationality). Taken as not involving	such	claims,	Dracula	could	provide	knowledge	by	considering nonactual metaphysical possibilities that are important for understanding	actuality.	At any rate, it is	particularly	hard to see	how knowledge	could	be	gained	from	impossible	fictions.3 5.	CONCLUSION Our topic has been whether literary fiction can be suppositional reasoning.	We	have	seen that the reasoning in thought	experiments, if anything, would be suppositional in nature, and although it is often claimed	that	at	least	some	works	of	fictional	literature	constitute	a	class of thought experiments, this claim is misleading. However, we have found that indirectly, within the context of judicious critical interpretation, works of fictional literature can holistically exhibit suppositional reasoning	and thereby constitute	a source	of	knowledge (if the	reasoning is	good) in	a	way that	supports the thesis	of	Literary Cognitivism. Evident constraints on this include that the form of the suppositional	reasoning	needs	to	be	declarative	or	imperative,	and	that the fictional 'premise' of the work needs to be a metaphysical counterfactual	possibility,	not	merely	a	temporal	counterfactual	and	not merely	an	epistemic	possibility	or	probabilistic	supposition. So, yes, it is true that literary fiction can be suppositional reasoning,	although	only	with	significant	qualification. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:	I	am	grateful	to	Olivia	Odoffin,	Kenneth	Olson, Teresa Plumer, Katharina Stevens, and audience members at the 3rd European Conference on Argumentation for helpful comments on earlier	drafts. REFERENCES Balcerak Jackson,	M.,	&	Balcerak Jackson,	B. (2013).	Reasoning	as	a source	of justification.	Philosophical	Studies,	164(1),	113–126. Barnett,	D.	(2006).	Zif	is	if.	Mind,	115(2),	519-565. Bourne,	C.,	&	Bourne,	E.	C.	(2018).	Personification	without	impossible	content. British	Journal	of	Aesthetics,	58(2),	165-179. 3Although (e.g.) Nolan (2015) can be regarded as arguing that impossible fictions can have cognitive value, Bourne & Bourne (2018) argue that the fictions	he	considers	are	not	really	impossible. 288 Carroll,	N. (2002). The	wheel of virtue: Art, literature, and	moral knowledge. Journal	of	Aesthetics	and	Art	Criticism,	60(1),	3-26. Dogramaci, S. (2016). Reasoning without blinders: A reply to Valaris.	Mind, 125(2),	889-893. Egan,	D.	(2016).	Literature	and	thought	experiments.	Journal	of	Aesthetics	and Art	Criticism,	74(2),	139-150. Elgin, C. Z. (2007).	The laboratory	of the	mind. In J. Gibson,	W.	Huemer,	&	L. Pocci (Eds), A Sense of the World: Essays on Fiction, Narrative, and Knowledge	(pp.	43-54).	New	York:	Routledge. Fisher, A. (1989). Suppositions in argumentation. Argumentation, 3(4), 401413. Gibson,	J.	(2006).	Interpreting	words,	interpreting	worlds.	Journal	of	Aesthetics and	Art	Criticism,	64(4),	439-450. Gibson, J. (2009). Literature and knowledge. In R. Eldridge (Ed.), Oxford Handbook	of	Philosophy	and	Literature (pp. 467-485).	Oxford:	Oxford University	Press. Green,	M.	(2000).	The	status	of	supposition.	Noûs,	34(3),	376-399. Green,	M.	(2010).	How	and	what	we	can	learn	from	fiction.	In	G.	L.	Hagberg	& W. Jost (Eds.),	A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature (pp. 350366).	Oxford:	Wiley-Blackwell. Green,	M.	(2016).	Learning	to	be	good	(or	bad)	in	(or	through)	literature.	In	G. L. Hagberg (Ed.), Fictional Characters, Real Problems: The Search for Ethical	Content in	Literature (pp.	282-301).	Oxford:	Oxford	University Press. Green,	M.	(2017).	Narrative	fiction	as	a	source	of	knowledge.	In	P.	Olmos	(Ed.), Narration	as	Argument	(pp.	47-61).	Cham:	Springer. Green,	M. (forthcoming). From signaling and expression to conversation and fiction.	Grazer	Philosophische	Studien. Maioli,	R.	(2014).	David	Hume,	literary	cognitivism,	and	the	truth	of	the	novel. Studies	in	English	Literature,	54(3),	625-648. Mikkonen,	J.	(2013).	The	Cognitive	Value	of	Philosophical	Fiction.	London: Bloomsbury. Nolan, D. (2015). Personification and impossible fictions. British Journal of Aesthetics,	55(1),	57-69. Plumer, G. (2017). The transcendental argument of the novel. Journal of the American	Philosophical	Association,	3(2),	148-167. Repp,	C. (2012).	What's	wrong	with	didacticism?	British Journal of	Aesthetics, 52(1),	271-285. Rosa, L. (2019). Knowledge grounded on pure reason. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly,100(1),	156-173. Swirski, P. (2007). Of Literature and Knowledge: Explorations in Narrative Thought Experiments,	Evolution	and	Game	Theory.	London:	Routledge. Thomson,	J.	J.	(1971).	A	defense	of	abortion.	Philosophy	and	Public	Affairs,	1(1), 47-66. Tooming, U. (2018). Imaginative resistance as imagistic resistance. Canadian Journal	of	Philosophy,	48(5),	684-706. Williamson,	T.	(2007).	The	Philosophy	of	Philosophy.	Malden,	MA:	Blackwell.