Living in Fiction

Wittgenstein makes two rather brief comments on
persuasion in On Certainty:
I can imagine a man who had grown up in quite special
circumstances and been taught that the earth came into
being 50 years ago, and therefore believed this. We
might instruct him: the earth has long… etc. – We should
be trying to give him our picture of the world. This would
happen through a kind of persuasion. (Wittgenstein
1972, §262).
And
… At the end of reasons comes persuasion. (Think what
happens when missionaries convert Indians). (Wittgenstein
1972, §612).
In these comments, Wittgenstein seems to think of persuasion
as having to do with a change in one"s picture of
the world that is not brought about by the giving of reasons
and arguments. Fiction comes to mind as a possible
vehicle of such a change. I would like to explore some of
the features of our encounter with fiction, and the ma