Empirical Knowledge in the Eighteenth-Century Novel
Beyond Realism

Focusing on formal realism has obscured how important the novel actually was to Enlightenment empiricism.

Aaron R. Hanlon (Author)

9781108791649, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 November 2022

75 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 0.6 cm, 0.14 kg

This Element examines the eighteenth-century novel's contributions to empirical knowledge. Realism has been the conventional framework for treating this subject within literary studies. This Element identifies the limitations of the realism framework for addressing the question of knowledge in the eighteenth-century novel. Moving beyond the familiar focus in the study of novelistic realism on problems of perception and representation, this Element focuses instead on how the eighteenth-century novel staged problems of inductive reasoning. It argues that we should understand the novel's contributions to empirical knowledge primarily in terms of what the novel offered as training ground for methods of reasoning, rather than what it offered in terms of formal innovations for representing knowledge. We learn from such a shift that the eighteenth-century novel was not a failed experiment in realism, or in representing things as they are, but a valuable system for reasoning and thought experiment.

Introduction
1. 18th-Century Theories of Knowledge
2. The Novel of Data
3. The Novel of Perception
4. The Novel of Testimony
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]