Abstrakt
There has been a proliferation of ideas, concepts and approaches coming in from the cognitive sciences into the areas of narratology and literary theory more generally. This has not always been without its problems.
For example, the migration of theory of mind into the purview of literary studies has been accompanied by some obscurity: Matthew K. Belmonte has pointed out the "divergence of the scientific and literary senses" in which this concept has been used.
While it is important not to allow for too much leeway with terms and concepts, when one speaks about the readers' minds, this is not necessarily so when one speaks about characters' minds. Fiction is the domain of what has been recently referred to as "the unnatural"; i.e., fiction does not (have to) stick to real world concepts.
The best way to apply these concepts to fiction is only to the extent and in the way that particular texts call for. Especially, certain disputes about these concepts regarding real world minds lose their relevance when the concepts are treated in the realm of fiction.
Using the work of William Faulkner as an example, I demonstrate the application of theory of mind and its competing accounts while minding the nature of fiction and the specifics of Faulkner's work. Ultimately, this is a claim for literature as an authoritative source of information about the mind that does not have to take a back seat to the traditional cognitive sciences.