Abstract

The article addresses the issue of artistic fiction from Christian Metz and Octave Mannoni’s work on the imaginary. The ability of human beings to believe and at the same time disbelieve in a fiction is based, according to these authors, on the more general possibility of maintaining a previous belief system alongside a new belief, based on perceptual reality. This possibility – which has to do with what Freud called “disavowalµ – in addition to art is manifested in play, rituals, superstitions and many attitudes present in everyday life. The article also points out that the possibility of believing and at the same time not believing in a civilization or a certain group is sometimes based on the identification of figures such as the child, the naive, and the credulous, who assume this function for everyone else. The article concludes that artistic fiction makes clear the possibility of a fundamental human experience from a psychic and cultural point of view.