In Between Our Minds and Through the Language In Fairy-Stories: Knowledge Gained In

Counterfactual Thinking

Abstract

This study contributes to research on the cognitive functions of the nature of fairy-stories and literary
language (Lillard, 1993; Harris, 2000; Nichols, 2003; Picciuto & Carruthers, 2016)[del ,] through an
analysis of one principal cognitive mechanism, counterfactual thinking, which is highlighted through
the language and narratives found in the genre of fairy-stories (Tolkien, 2006; Lewis, 1982). I argue
that counterfactual thinking, i.e.[del ,] the ability to conceive alternative situations imaginatively, is a
key means for developing our ability to mindread, as to 1) enrich ones self-knowledge by knowing
the counterfactual self, and 2) know others better by entering in a community of minds (references).

The relationship between reading fairy-stories and mindreading engages the counterfactual thinking
mode which specifies the mental state of the would-be situations (Byrne, 2005). Through the
language in fairy-stories that activates the imagination, the readers self-awareness of her actual self in
the world that she is reading is bridged to her would-be counterfactual self in the fairyland. The
readers interactions with fictional figures and possible worlds constitute an experience that
contributes to her dynamic formation in understanding the self, and then from the self to others.
Through this embellished experience, mental training in thinking counterfactually leads the reader to
one access of self-knowledge: the self in between actual and possible worlds. Hence, thinking
counterfactually enhances the readers mindreading ability. The enhanced mindreading ability in
cognition and the multiple would-be scenarios in fairy-stories[del ,] opens one access to discern the
relations between the self and others.

Through reading fairy-stories, the reader is provoked to imagine and reason simultaneously, because
her cognitive process is in a dynamic that places herself into the drama of the story. This helps the
reader to discern what she knows and would be doing, by herself and/or along with others, in between
this-is and would-be contexts. Thus it becomes easier for the reader to gain knowledge through a
plurality of perspectives. Both within the self and in others, the reader comes to know other minds,
and engages herself in between this world and the fairyland.

Sources:
John Paul I. (1978). Illustrissimi: The Letters of Pope John Paul I. London: HarperCollins.
Lewis, C.S. (1982). The Chronicles of Narnia. London: HarperCollins.
Saint- Exupry, de A. (2006). Le Petit Prince. Taipei: Global Group Holdings, Ltd.
Tolkien, J.R.R. (2006). The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. London: HarperCollins.
--- (2006). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. London: HarperCollins.
--- (2009). Letters from Father Christmas. London: HarperCollins.
Twain, Mark. (2007). The Prince and the Pauper. NY: Bantam Dell.

References:
Byrne, R. (2005). The rational imagination: how people create alternatives to reality. Cambridge:
The MIT Press.
Harris, P. L. (2000). The work of the imagination. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lillard, A. S. (1993). Pretend play skills and the child's theory of mind. Child Development, 64, 348-
371.
Nichols, Sh. & Stich, P. S. (2003). Mindreading. An integrated account of pretence, self-awareness,
and understanding other minds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Picciuto, E. & Carruthers, P. (2016). Imagination and Pretense, In Amy Kind (ed.), The Routledge
Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination (141-160), NY, Routledge.