CFP: Fiction, Imagination, and Epistemology

We invite PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to submit abstracts of up to 1000 words (excl. references) for giving a talk (about 30 minutes) at the conference "Fiction, Imagination, and Epistemology", taking place 27th-28th June 2019 at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. The deadline for submission is 26th April 2019. Information about acceptance/rejection will be given by 3rd May. Please send your abstract to Christopher.badura AT rub.de with the subject “FIE conf”.

The conference aims to explore a broad set of issues concerning the connections between fiction, imagination, and epistemology.  What exactly can we learn from fiction and imagination? Can we only learn what could be the case or also what is the case? Can we also learn how to do certain things through fiction or imagination? What kind of justification does imagination provide, if any at all? And, what place have thought experiments here? Are they fictions? Do they involve imagination? What kind of knowledge do they offer, if any?  Talks should address these questions or related themes.