What is the sense of literature at all? Sometimes I wonder if the sense of literature is merely a capitalistic one. I am a writer myself, I like to write, a creativity in me that walks its own roads. But why do we read fictional texts from others? If I read one of my own, I know "what it is about", I know the grounds, dreams, feelings, hopes, etc. I had while writing. But then someone else reads that- how could he read anything in that text, that I tried to put there rather in between the lines. Does reading literature tells us something about "the other"? Does literature work as a translator between two people with singular minds? Is literature a connection between "myself" and "the other"? Is then, therefore, the sense of literature to (very general) live in a human society?

Thanks for your nice question. It contains many components and I won't be able to respond to all of them. One reason is that I'm hesitant to offer generalizations about literature across the board. Instead, it comes in many genres and sub-genres, and plays different kinds of roles in different cultures. One place you might look for more discussion of these issues is a collection of essays on the "philosophy of literature", here: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405141700,descCd-description.html. One of the questions that that volume addresses is the question of what kind of knowledge we can get from literature, and how far that knowledge extends. I take it that this is relevant to your concerns because I'm assuming that if you were a journalist writing for a newspaper, there wouldn't be a big issue about whether someone can learn from what you write. So long as you're not making things up, we can learn about what's going on in, say French politics from your articles. By...