Abstract: This chapter sets up the challenge of offering a reconciliation between the two intuitions about the nature and value of literary artwork. It introduces the sceptic, himself a fiction but a fiction whose voice will draw together the most powerful reasons available for doubting that this reconciliation is possible. It is shown that far from being a literary philistine, the sceptic appears to have both literature and reason on his side. The arguments the sceptic sets forth pose a genuine threat to the humanist intuition. Indeed, they reveal something deeply puzzling about the idea that literature can or ever wishes to be revelatory of reality.

Keywords: literature, reason, sceptic, humanism, humanist intuition, literary philistine,