Fiction and truth

Some interesting discussions in seminar today about 'fiction' (aka 'lying') and 'truth', occasioned in particular by the way Martel's Life of Pi sets two alternate stories, one 'better' than the other, as explanations of the events of his life. We all agreed that it's good to tell the truth and bad to lie, but didn't seem to certain on what grounds, exactly, we wanted to defend fiction as 'the lie that tells the truth'.

This is, as we mentioned, a large and continuing philosophical and literary-theoretical debate, one core to the very notion of 'fiction' as something more than just pleasing but mendacious escapist fantasies. Here are some links, although they only scratch the surface.

The granddaddy of debates about the status of 'truth' is Nietzsche. Read, if you're interested, 'Of Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense' (1873: it's not long. The wikipedia page on this famous essay is useful). Lee Spinks's introductory guide to Nietzsche is very helpful, I think: read p.44f. on the 'Truth and Lies' essay.

Also very interesting on 'truth' and literature is philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Read her Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (1990)--a philosophical text, but accessibly written and covering a good deal of this material. [A fair-sized chunk of the book is available at that google-books link, there; the whole thing is in the library]. There's also Geoffrey Galt Harpham's essay on Nussbaum's thought, 'The Hunger of Martha Nussbaum' [Representations, No. 77 (Winter, 2002), pp. 52-81], which might help you get a handle on what she is saying. For example:

While, for Derrida, "literary" figuration undercuts the truth-function of language and this interferes with philosophy's ability to guide and instruct, Nussbaum sees the matter differently. For her, literature, centered in plot and character, both reveals the true nature of ethical decision-making as a constant testing of general principle against specific instances and, because of its superior vivacity, teaches virtue far more directly and effectively than philosophy ever could. ... Derrida's approach to texts presumes their alien character, their refusal to lend themselves to their readers' purposes, their insistence on remaining "undecidable" and thereby requiring readers to remain in a state of unsettled inqujiry. Nussbaum, by sharp contrast, insistently blurs the distinction between books and life, recognizing no such refusal, no such undecidability, no such submission. [56-7]

Which party do you side with, I wonder -- Derrida or Nussbaum?