Abstract: The chapter begins the defence of humanism against the sceptic's challenge. It explores the linguistic and semantic considerations that make humanism seem so implausible. The sceptic's arguments make it look as though humanism is built upon paradox, a desire to understand literature in terms of precisely what literature turns out to be contrasted with: a vision of the way the world is. The central reason we are inclined to think humanism paradoxical is because it shocks many of our more general linguistic intuitions, intuitions the sceptic exploits in his recital. To the extent that a work of imaginative literature represents anything, it represents fictions (namely fictional worlds). Yet one of the most common beliefs we have is that language fundamentally connects to reality by way of linguistic representation. In other words, it appears that literature's refusal to represent reality places a wedge between its words and reality. It is argued that the humanist can embrace this ‘representational divide’ that runs between literature and life. If literature does not represent reality, it plays a crucial role in the construction of those narratives in virtue of which we give sense to our characteristically human practices and experiences.

Keywords: humanism, literature, sceptic, paradox, imagination, fictional worlds,