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Knowledge, Fiction and Imagination (review)

NoviTZ ranges widely and confidendy over an impressive field of philosophical topics: the foundations of knowledge, the nature of imagination, realism and idealism, skepticism and relativism, deconstruction, emotions, literary interpretation, cognitive values in literature, the theory of metaphor, the identification of cultures, and the role of narrative in personal identity. A powerful central theme, which gives the book its coherence, is the exposition and defense of what Novitz calls "romantic realism." Broadly speaking this is the conjunction of two lines of thought: one (the romantic part) stresses the ascendancy of the creative imagination in the acquisition of knowledge, the other (the realist part) defends a genuine objectivity of fact and meaning, in contrast to all forms of subjectivism or relativism. The project of reconciling these potentially incompatible positions is exciting and ambitious. Novitz is aware of the tensions between the two parts and recognizes "the romantic abyss," just a short step away, threatening extreme forms of idealism and relativism. He lures us away from these "excesses" with reassuring commonsense, supported by careful philosophical reasoning andjudicious appeal to historical background. Whatever the final verdict on the project, the book provides, at the least, clear evidence that you don't have to go woolly minded in defending romanticism or highlight-