Our hosts disagree as to whether fiction has a serious effect on the person reading it. Ken thinks that, to some extent, “you are what you read,” and that novels can force us to grapple with serious moral issues in a way that will improve our thinking in the non-fiction world. John, on the other hand, sees fiction as not much more than entertainment. He admits some books are better written – and therefore more captivating – but denies that even the best books could change a persons’ moral constitution. He himself is the best example of this: once a curmudgeon, always a curmudgeon.

Our guest Josh Landy joins the conversation, and places his own opinion squarely between Ken and John’s. He agrees with Ken that fiction helps the reader develop practical skills, but doesn’t think these skills must be ethical in nature. And he agrees with John, that a book will never completely transform someone; he insists, however, that it might help them see with greater clarity who they already are.

In all, Prof. Landy does not think there is one, single thing that fiction is supposed to accomplish. Rather, fiction as a genre furnishes a book with a very peculiar set of “mental exercise equipment” – unreliable narrators, breaking the fourth wall, mixtures of fantasy and reality – that one cannot find in works of non-fiction. These puzzles and paradoxes force the reader to grapple with difficult issues, and thereby improve the strength of their thinking.

因此，我们的客人并不认为一部小说有价值，因为它有我们应该“得到”的特定“信息”。相反，一本书、一部电影或一部戏剧是一种邀请，让我们以一种可能不习惯的方式使用大脑——就像“跑步者的兴奋”一样，这种练习可能会给我们带来一种特殊的成就感。因此，他在书中寻找的是所谓的“用户手册”。节目中还包括苏格拉底对话录和马可福音中这样的手册。

• Roving Philosophical Reporter (skip to 5:00) -心理学实验(来自科学家雷蒙德·马和基思·奥特利)表明，阅读小说可以增强我们的同理心能力。虚构的故事让我们“站在别人的立场上走一段路”，从而理解其他人和我们自己一样深刻和复杂。例如，神经科学表明，阅读一些简单动作的虚构描述与实际体验该动作所涉及的大脑区域是相同的。此外，共情测试不仅证明了人们在阅读小说后会发生变化，而且还表明，一部公认的文学作品(在这种情况下，是契诃夫的短篇小说)比对同一事件的非虚构叙述具有更大的影响。