Pretense, Existence, and Fictional Objects

There has recently been considerable interest in accounts of fiction which treat fictional characters as abstract objects. In this paper I argue against this view. More precisely I argue that such accounts are unable to accommodate our intuitions that fictional negative existentials such as "Raskolnikov doesn't exist" are true. I offer a general argument to this effect and then consider, but reject, some of the accounts of fictional negative existentials offered by abstract object theorists. I then note that some of the sort of data invoked by the abstract object theorist in fact cuts against her position. I conclude that we should not regard fictional characters as abstract objects but rather should adopt a make-believe theoretic account of fictional characters along the lines of those developed by Ken Walton and others.     

Vague fictional objects

ABSTRACT

I propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fictional objects so conceived may be ontically indeterminate; in the last part, I consider what happens when vague existence and indeterminate identity are claimed within fictional texts.     

Much Ado About Nothing: Critical Realism Examined

Critical realism is the view that fictional characters arecontingent, actual, abstract individuals, ontologically on a par with such things as plots and rhyme schemes, andquantified over in statements such as A character inHamlet is a prince. A strong contender for thecorrect account of fictional characters, critical realismnevertheless has difficulty satisfying all that we intuitivelyrequire of such an account.     

Making sense of ourselves: self-narratives and personal identity

Some philosophers take personal identity to be a matter of self-narrative. I argue, to the contrary, that self-narrative views cannot stand alone as views of personal (or numerical) identity. First, I consider Dennett’s self-narrative view, according to which selves are fictional characters—abstractions, like centers of gravity—generated by brains. Neural activity is to be interpreted from the intentional stance as producing a story. I argue that this is implausible. The inadequacy is masked by Dennett’s ambiguous use of ‘us’: sometimes ‘us’ refers to real human beings, and sometimes ‘us’ refers to selves or fictional characters. Second, I consider Schechtmann’s view that self-narratives create persons (in the sense that she calls ‘characterization’ or personality. I argue that the sense in which a self-narrative creates a person cannot stand on its own: a person must already exist (in the sense of numerical identity) in order for there to be a self-narrative. Finally, I offer my own account of persons.     

Do we weep for Cordelia?

Abstract

Much of the contemporary debate concerning the nature and role of fictive emotions has argued that we do feel garden-variety emotions for fictional characters; the puzzle has been to account for this, given our knowledge of their fictional status. In this paper I argue that many of the emotional responses we have towards fictional characters are nothing like the emotions we feel in ordinary life. The implications for our engagement with literary fictions are subsequently examined.     

Fiction,Pleasurable Tragedy,and the HOT Theory of Consciousness

Abstract

The ‘feeling fiction problem’ asks: is it rational to be moved by what happens to fictional characters? The so-called ‘paradox of tragedy’ is embodied in the question: Why or how is it that we take pleasure in artworks which are clearly designed to cause in us such feelings as sadness and fear? My focus in this paper is to examine these problems from the point of view of the so-called ‘higher-order thought theory of consciousness’ (HOT theory) which says that the best explanation for what makes a mental state conscious is that it is accompanied by a thought that one is in that state. I examine the feeling fiction problem in light of the HOT theory and through a critique of Colin Radford's view. For example, I argue that Radford equivocates in his use of the term ‘aware’ in his response to some of the proposed solutions to the feeling fiction problem. Finally, I show how Susan Feagin's approach to the paradox of tragedy can be analysed and supported by the HOT theory.     

Fictional Models and Fictional Representations

Scientific models consist of fictitious elements and assumptions. Various attempts have been made to answer the question of how a model, which is sometimes viewed as a fiction, can explain or predict the target phenomenon adequately. I examine two accounts (the counterfactual dependency view and the idealization view) of models-as-fictions which are aiming at disentangling the myth of representing the reality by fictional models. I argue that both views have their own weaknesses in spite of many virtues. I propose to re-evaluate the problems of representation from a novel perspective in which some of the model representations can be regarded as fictional representations. I argue that this type of model representation is credible despite being a fictional representation of the reality.     

Scientific models and fictional objects

In this paper, I distinguish scientific models in three kinds on the basis of their ontological status—material models, mathematical models and fictional models, and develop and defend an account of fictional models as fictional objects—i.e. abstract objects that stand for possible concrete objects.     

Pleonastic Entities: Fictional Characters and Propositions

Stephen Schiffer holds that propositions are pleonastic entities. I will argue that there is a substantial difference between propositions and fictional characters, which Schiffer presents as typical pleonastic entities. My conclusion will be that if fictional characters are typical pleonastic entities, then Schiffer fails to show that propositions are pleonastic entities.     

Abstract Artifacts in Pretence

Abstract

In this paper I criticise a recent account of fictional discourse proposed by Nathan Salmon. Salmon invokes abstract artifacts as the referents of fictional names in both object- and meta-fictional discourse alike. He then invokes a theory of pretence to forge the requisite connection between object-fictional sentences and meta-fictional sentences, in virtue of which the latter can be assigned appropriate truth-values. I argue that Salmon's account of pretence renders his appeal to abstract artifacts as the referents of fictional names in object-fictional discourse explanatorily redundant. I further argue that his account is therefore no improvement over those he criticises, thus leaving his own account unmotivated.     

Fictional Characters and Characterisations

Realists about fictional characters posit a certain theoretical role and a candidate to fill this role. I will delineate the role realists take fictional characters like Emma Woodhouse to fill, and I will argue that it is better filled by what I will call ‘characterisations’. In explaining what I mean by ‘characterisations’, I will show that the existence of these entities is comparatively uncontroversial. Realists should acknowledge their existence, but doing so, I will argue, obviates the need to acknowledge the existence of Emma and other fictional individuals.     

Fictional objects, non-existence, and the principle of characterization

I advance an objection to Graham Priest??s account of fictional entities as nonexistent objects. According to Priest, fictional characters do not have, in our world, the properties they are represented as having; for example, the property of being a bank clerk is possessed by Joseph K. not in our world but in other worlds. Priest claims that, in this way, his theory can include an unrestricted principle of characterization for objects. Now, some representational properties attributed to fictional characters, a kind of fictional entities, involve a crucial reference to the world in which they are supposed to be instantiated. I argue that these representational properties are problematic for Priest??s theory and that he cannot accept an unrestricted version of the principle of characterization. Thus, while not refuting Priest??s theory, I show that it is no better off than other Meinongian theories.     

Naming and Nonexistence

I defend a cluster of views about names from fiction and myth. The views are based on two claims: first, proper names refer directly to their bearers; and second, names from fiction and myth are genuinely empty, they simply do not refer. I argue that when such names are used in direct discourse, utterances containing them have truth values but do not express propositions. I also argue that it is a mistake to think that if an utterance of, for example, “Vulcan is a planet” fails to express a proposition, then an utterance of “Le Verrier believed that Vulcan is a planet” cannot express a proposition. The argument applies to claims about fiction, such as “Sherlock Holmes is strong,” and claims about the attitudes of authors and auditors. The upshot is a semantics for fictional statements that provides a satisfying way for direct reference theorists to avoid taking fictional entities to be abstract objects and to accept the commonsense view that what is true in a fiction is ultimately a matter of what is pretended to be the case.     

IN DEFENCE OF FICTIONAL REALISM

Fictional realism, i.e., the view that because fictions exist, fictional characters exist as well, has recently been accused of leading to inconsistency generated by phenomena of indeterminacy and inconsistency in fiction. We examine in detail four arguments against fictional realism, and present a version of fictional realism which can withstand those arguments.     

Eluding Wilson’s “Elusive Narrators”

George Wilson has defended the thesis that even impersonal third-person fictional narratives should be taken to contain fictional narrations and have fictional narrators. This, he argues, is necessary if we are to explain how readers can take themselves, in their imaginative engagement with fictions, to have knowledge of the things they are imagining. I argue that there is at least one class of impersonal third-person fictional narratives—thought experiments—to which Wilson’s model fails to apply, and that this reveals more general problems with his argument. I further argue that there is no good reason to think that Wilson’s account applies more restrictedly to those impersonal third-person fictional narratives that feature in standard works of literary fiction.     

Fiction: Impossible!

I argue that modal realism is unable to account for fictional discourse. My starting point is an overview of modal realism. I then present a dilemma for modal realism regarding fictional characters. Finally, I provide responses to both horns of the dilemma, one motivating modal dimensionalism, the other motivating a disjunctive analysis of modality.     

Identity in Fiction

Anthony Everett ( 2005 ) argues that those who embrace the reality of fictional entities run into trouble when it comes to specifying criteria of character identity. More specifically, he argues that realists must reject natural principles governing the identity and distinctness of fictional characters due to the existence of fictions which leave it indeterminate whether certain characters are identical and the existence of fictions which say inconsistent things about the identities of their characters. Everett's critique has deservedly drawn much attention and a number of defensive moves have been made by, or on the behalf of, fictional realists. My goal in this paper is to move this debate on a further step. I have three goals: (i) to clarify the importance of Everett's discussion of identity criteria within the context of fictional realism, (ii) to reassess Everett's objections to realism in light of the resultant literature, and (iii) to develop a novel strategy for responding to Everett's concerns. On the approach to be developed, the problems emerge due to an indeterminacy inherent in the concept of a fictional character itself.     

The paradox(es) of pitying and fearing fictions

The acknowledged paradox in our emotional response to fictional characters and events is that the very beliefs required by a cognitive account of the emotions are excluded by knowledge that the context is fictional. Various proposed solutions have failed to reconcile cognitivism with respect to the emotions with the facts of that response. Those offered include denying cognitivism by excluding the belief on the emotions, denying genuine emotional response in these contexts, or advocating either fictional realism or irrationalism in such response. By specifically examining pity and fear this paper tries to reconcile genuine emotional response to fictional characters and events with a unified cognitive account of the emotions by arguing that instead of excluding belief the existential condition on the beliefs in an emotion can be lifted by the invitation to imagine. At the same time it shows that the richness of that response need not be denied and throws some light on further related paradoxes (for instance by indicating why not all emotions are rationally possible in fictive contexts and that although we can pity fictions we cannot rationally fear them). Then by explaining why, unlike in ordinary contexts we do not act on our emotions in fictive ones, it differentiates the reasons for passivity in fictional and in historical circumstances.     

Reactionary Fictionalism

Fictionalism is the view that the claims of a target discourse are best seen as being fictional in some way, as being expressed in some pretense manner, or as not being about the traditional posits of the discourse. The contemporary taxonomy of fictionalist views is quite elaborate. Yet, there is a version of fictionalism that has failed to develop and which corresponds to the earliest form of the view found in the history of philosophy, East and West. I call this view “reactionary fictionalism.” I argue that traces of reactionary fictionalism can be found in Classical Daoism, Madhyamaka Buddhism, and Pyrrhonian Skepticism. Reactionary fictionalism is a kind of fictionalism that differs from both the hermeneutic and revolutionary kinds discussed today. Hermeneutic fictionalism says we already treat the claims of a target discourse in a fictional manner. Revolutionary fictionalism recommends we all start treating the claims of a target discourse in a fictional manner for reasons mostly of social utility. Reactionary fictionalism recommends, by contrast, that only those concerned with obtaining maximal therapeutic release from the pathology of literally asserting genuine beliefs in the claims of a target discourse should react in a pretense manner to inescapable contexts demanding the use of the claims of that discourse. I aim to show that reactionary fictionalism was a technique utilized in premodern skeptical traditions as a means for enduring one's condemnation to near-permanent sociality. I recommend slotting reactionary fictionalism into our present taxonomy once we note that employing fictionalism can have a primarily therapeutic motivation and not merely a semantic, epistemic, or metaphysical one.