Overview

The search for truth defines detective fiction. In classical detective stories this search begins with a question and ends with an answer. Metaphysical detective stories provide no answers, and in doing so, question the nature of 'truth'. Although the popular genre of detective fiction may initially appear to be worlds apart from the philosophical inquiry of metaphysics, experience and interpretation are central to the processes that define each pursuit. The detective combines the mental faculties of reason and imagination to reveal the 'truth'; the philosopher also pursues 'truth' through a comparable process of identification, interpretation, analysis and synthesis. Metaphysicians are concerned with the phenomenon of subjective experience, in terms of both identity and the self, with an interest in the nature of reality and the essence of objects. Through an examination of the interaction between internal and external spheres, these philosophers attempt to explain the extension of the apparently transcendental mind into the extracranial world, and the influence of objects on phenomenal experience. Neither philosophers nor neuroscientists1 have been able to explain the problem of interaction with complete certainty, which has deep implications for detective stories that purport to find the 'truth' of the world through intellect alone. From the resulting crisis of meaning has emerged the genre of metaphysical detective fiction, a genre that challenges assumptions about identity and reality, and questions the nature of 'truth'.

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9781835200575

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