Utopia and 'the Thing which is not': More, Swift, and Other Lying Idealists

Abstract

Early in his career as a writer Jonathan Swift expressed with dry irony his awareness of the power of fiction to persuade, and made clear the rigorous control which reason ought to exert over a human inclination to prefer illusion to the discomforts of truth. Utopian ideals are expressed in fiction, and the concern of Swift and other utopists is as much with the presentation as with the idea. Their concern is also with the parts played by imagination and reason in the grasp of concepts beyond experience and with the question of moral responsibility in the handling of persuasive rhetoric. It is on aspects of presentation that I wish chiefly to concentrate.