ABSTRACT
The main claim of literary cognitivism is both simple and appealing: the idea is that we can acquire knowledge from reading literature. One might say that a humanistic liberal education is founded on this idea. Works of literature, especially those that take up enduring questions about human experience, have long played a critical role in secondary and university education. Whereas other arts, such as music and painting, have often (and unfortunately) been regarded as elective or peripheral, the study of literature is at the very center of our educational traditions. So the idea that literature is a source of knowledge resonates deeply with our educational and cultural practices.
