ABSTRACT
This argument depends on a particular view of literary texts. As early as 1978, Dennett was claiming that 'the introspective declarations, avowals, revisions, confessions of subjects or image-havers'2 may be accorded the authority which the text has in New Criticism, a view he still defends - 'we can, and do', he insists, 'speak of what is true in [a] story ... the interpretation of fiction is undeniably doable, with certain uncontroversial results'. Both the autobiographies told by subjects of philosophical enquiry and the world textually 'determined by fiat' in a work of fiction are, he claims, 'stable' in the light of 'the best, most coherent, reading of the text we can find' (Consciousness Explained, pp. 79, 81). He evidently has not come to terms with the way texts as well as selves have been deconstructed in our time, that critics now assume that all narrators 'might be mistaken' - and not just if they are
like Miles Coverdale in The Blithedale Romance, or Lockwood and Nelly Dean in Wuthering Heights. As a critic of literature, therefore, I feel justified in taking issue with Dennett, notwithstanding his formidable reputation as a philosopher.
