Once Upon a Time is a collection of essays in the philosophy of literature with two central themes: the significance of story telling for us and the question of whether the novel, perhaps the art form most closely associated with story-telling, is a legitimate source of human knowledge. Leading philosopher of art Peter Kivy explores why human beings are so enthralled by being told stories and whether story-telling is a significant source of knowledge. Starting with a study of Aristotle's Poetics, Kivy then undertakes a critical discussion of Noel Carrolls suggestion that our interaction with the artists of the past is a kind of conversation. He goes on to defend the thesis that one of the legitimate artistic pleasures we take in novel-reading is the acquiring of knowledge and, furthermore, that the silent reading of a novel is a kind of performance, making the novel one of the performing arts. The volume concludes with a chapter about jokes, and, in particular, whether it is immoral to tell or be amused by an immoral joke. This volume of essays is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in literature and the conceptual problems it may raise for philosophers.

Peter Kivy was Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Rutgers University. His many published works include De Gustibus: Arguing About Taste and Why We Do It (2015), Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience (2009), The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics (2004) and Antithetical Arts: On the Ancient Quarrel Between Literature and Music (2009). Several of his books have been translated into Chinese, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. He was a former Guggenheim Fellow and a past President of the American Society for Aesthetics.

Aaron Meskin isthe Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Georgia.

Preface / 1. The Actual, the Possible and the Probable: Problems in Poetics IX / 2. Criticism, Communication, Conversation, Craft / 3. Facts From Fictions / 4. Knowledge and Novel Knowledge / 5. Swept Up in the Story / 6. Tell Me a Story! / 7. The Dancer and the Dance: On Reading as Performance / 8. Joking Morality / Bibliography / Index