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.     

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 Truth and Make-Believe

The statement “Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” seems true in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice (even though it may not actually appear in the text) while the statement “Mr. Darcy is a detective” seems false. One explanation for this intuition is that when we read or talk about fictional stories, we implicitly employ the fictional operator “It is fictional that” or “It is part of the story that.” “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” expresses a true proposition while “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy is a detective” does not. Fictive statements can be abbreviated as “In F, P”. Determining what statements are fictionally true in a story requires providing truth conditions for statements of the form “In F, P.” This paper proposes an analysis of truth in fiction and examines the notion of make-believe.     

关于虚构对象的合取创造主义

关于虚构对象的作者创造主义是创造主义的主要形式,而作者创造主义信条隐含个体创造主义信条。本文论证个体创造主义者面临判定难题,并提出一种新型的创造主义观点,即合取创造主义,并论证合取创造主义者不面临判定难题,最后为合取创造主义做进一步辩护,说明合取创造主义是一种更有前途的创造主义观点。     

Dreams as Fictional Remembering

ABSTRACT

During dreaming, the brain inhibits input from the senses and blocks motor output. The miracle is that, despite a lack of contact with the senses and a temporary paralysis, the brain continues to generate densely meaningful first-person scenarios. What justifies this purely imaginative procedure that leaves people so vulnerable to predators? A great deal of neuroanatomical evidence suggests that during REM sleep, the brain prunes exuberant synaptic connections. In so doing, the brain simplifies overly complex models of the world formed during the day to deal with noisy scenarios and renders them more generalizable to the future. Freud likened the mandate of dreaming to the task an illustrator faces in coming up with a single illustration to represent the day’s headlines. In my view, this process of condensation is not a method of disguise, as Freud believed, but the very function of dreaming, and it has a temporal signature. Dreams reveal and simplify past happenings by generating tight fictional narratives around similar schemas, exposing by analogy the deep invariant structures of the stories by which people organize their lives.     

Fictional names and narrating characters

In this paper I want to examine the concept of ‘conditions of fulfilment‘ or ‘compliance‘ or ‘satisfaction‘ which have been introduced by some authors in order to provide analyses of meaning which are just as adequate to directive speech acts as truth-conditional semantics are (claimed to be) adequate to assertive speech acts. It will be argued that this aim is missed. Most analyses (except those of some primitive cases) will remain throughout imcomplete as long as they are not supplemented by a specification of conditions of normative validity. In the case of several illocutionary verbs they can be substituted by conditions under which the speaker could make use of sanctions against the hearer.     

The Semantics of Fictional Names

Abstract: In this paper we defend a direct reference theory of names. We maintain that the meaning of a name is its bearer. In the case of vacuous names, there is no bearer and they have no meaning. We develop a unified theory of names such that one theory applies to names whether they occur within or outside fiction. Hence, we apply our theory to sentences containing names within fiction, sentences about fiction or sentences making comparisons across fictions. We then defend our theory against objections and compare our view to the views of Currie, Walton, and others.     

空名与虚构实体

本文论证了如下观点:第一,存在是个体的一个真正的谓词.尽管说每一样东西存在可能是不足道的,但很多东西只具有偶然的存在.第二,虚构实质上是一种假装,虚构名称不具有普通名称的功能,它们只是在假装进行指称,关于虚构对象的陈述也只是假装表达了命题,而不是真的表达命题.第三,“虚构的”一词可以叠置,虚构实体是由于人们的活动才得以存在的一种特定类型的抽象实体,它们的存在取决于虚构作品是否被创造出来,因而虚构实体的存在是一个诉诸经验便可解决的问题,在日常语言中,我们完全可以对虚构实体进行量化并建立同一性.     

Real Representation of Fictional Objects

Assuming there are fictional objects, what sorts of properties do they have? Intuitively, most of their properties involve being represented—appearing in works of fiction, being depicted as clever, being portrayed by actors, being admired or feared, and so on. But several philosophers, including Saul Kripke, Peter van Inwagen, Kendall Walton, and Amie Thomasson, argue that even if there are fictional objects, they are not really represented in some or all of these cases. I reconstruct four kinds of arguments for this unexpected conclusion; they concern the semantics of names, pragmatic force, creation, and representations’ qualitative content. But I find all the arguments flawed. I then argue for the contrary, employing a new perspective: representation of fictional objects begins with the works of fiction that originate them. A work of fiction represents its “native” objects because our culture bestows that property on it (and on other works of fiction). I sketch conditions for such property bestowal and argue that they are satisfied in this case.     

Approximate truth

Conclusion The technical results presented here on continuity and approximate implication are obviously incomplete. In particular, a syntactic characterization of approximate implication is highly desirable. Nevertheless, I believe the results above do show that the theory has considerable promise for application to the areas mentioned at the top of the paper.Formulation and defense of realist interpretations of science, for example, require approximate truth because we hardly ever have evidence that a particular scientific theory corresponds perfectly with a portion of the real world. Realists need to assert, then, that evidence for a theory is evidence for its approximate truth, not its truth (see [3] and [18]). Approximate truth is, however, a vague notion, and specification of quantity terms and of a sense of approximation are needed to make precise applications of it. Suitability of both vocabulary and sense of approximation depend on the subject matter, and their selection is a partly empirical matter that raises complex issues. In light of the number of common inferences which are not continuous, realists also need to be concerned about indiscriminate use of deductive logic to derive consequences from approximately true theories. These issues will be considered further in a future paper.Approximate truth also has potential application in areas of artificial intelligence that require inference from inaccurate data. In the qualitative physical theories of de Kleer and Brown [6], for example, qualitative values are derived by partitioning the real numbers into regions. Inferences leading from inside to outside a region must be identified and avoided, and approximate implication and continuity may prove useful in doing this. More generally, growing use of predicate logic as a programming language invites application of the theory of approximate truth as a symbolic substitute for numerical evaluation of computation errors. This too will be the subject of a future paper.Thanks to R. Boyd, A. Garfinkel, H. Hertz, P. Solomon, P. Suppes, S. Weissman, and anonymous referees for advice and criticism.     

The Real Foundation of Fictional Worlds

I argue that judgments of what is ‘true in a fiction’ presuppose the Reality Assumption: the assumption that everything that is (really) true is fictionally the case, unless excluded by the work. By contrast with the more familiar Reality Principle, the Reality Assumption is not a rule for inferring implied content from what is explicit. Instead, it provides an array of real-world truths that can be used in such inferences. I claim that the Reality Assumption is essential to our ability to understand stories, drawing on a range of empirical evidence that demonstrates our reliance on it in narrative comprehension. However, the Reality Assumption has several unintuitive consequences, not least that what is fictionally the case includes countless facts that neither authors nor readers could (or should) ever consider. I argue that such consequences provide no reason to reject the Reality Assumption. I conclude that we should take fictions, like non-fictions, to be about the real world.     

Vacuous truth

Special thanks go to Paul Humphreys for his criticisms and helpful comments. Also Richard Gale, Gerald Massey, Nicholas Rescher, David Blumenfeld, James Humber, Richard Ketchum, and Wolfgang Dietel made helpful comments on an earlier version. Each found something in need of repair. Finally, I would like to thank the Hambidge Center and the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh for providing in 1988 the setting and the resources that made this paper possible.