© 2017 The Author. Journal compilation © 2017 Institute of Philosophy SAS Organon F 24 (3) 2017: 384-404 Tichý and Fictional Names DANIELA GLAVANIČOVÁ1 ABSTRACT: The paper examines two possible analyses of fictional names within Pavel Tichý's Transparent Intensional Logic. The first of them is the analysis actually proposed by Tichý in his (1988) book The Foundations of Frege's Logic. He analysed fictional names in terms of free variables. I will introduce, explain, and assess this analysis. Subsequently, I will explain Tichý's notion of individual role (office, thing-to-be). On the basis of this notion, I will outline and defend the second analysis of fictional names. This analysis is close to the approach known in the literature as role realism (the most prominent advocates of this position are Nicholas Wolterstorff, Gregory Currie, and Peter Lamarque). KEYWORDS: fictional characters, fictional names, roles, Transparent Intensional Logic, variables. 1. Introduction The semantic analysis of fictional names is one of the central topics in the (analytic) philosophy of fiction. This issue is closely related to the ontology and metaphysics of fictional characters, or more broadly, of fictional entities. By fictional names I will understand expressions that seem to be introduced in order to speak about fictional characters. Fictional names will 1 Received: 3 April 2017 / Accepted: 27 June 2017  Daniela Glavaničová Department of Logic and Methodology of Sciences Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Arts, Gondova 2, 814 99 Bratislava, Slovak Republic e-mail: dada.baudelaire@gmail.com T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 385 thus be expressions such as Sherlock Holmes, Toru Watanabe, Thérèse Raquin, Jean-Sol Partre etc. I will confine my attention to such individual fictional names, leaving aside fictional names of other sorts (e.g., names of fictional cities, events, bridges, schools and so on). Moreover, the focus will be on the literature, leaving thus aside movies, music, fine arts and so on. Since Pavel Tichý and his Transparent intensional logic (TIL) will be central for this paper, let me briefly introduce him and his work. Pavel Tichý was a Czech logician and philosopher who developed TIL, a framework for the analysis of natural languages (but also for the analysis of languages in general). Tichý has laid the foundations of TIL in his The Foundations of Frege's Logic (see Tichý 1988). The goal of TIL was ambitious from the very beginning: Tichý claimed his system not only to correct the shortcomings of Frege's theory (hence the title) and of Russell's theory, but also to be the right medium for modelling our whole conceptual scheme (see Tichý 1988, ix). The proposed system is hyperintensional.2 Tichý models meanings as structured procedures (constructions; see Tichý 1988, 56-65). Any well formed expression of TIL represents a construction (definitions of constructions can be understood as determining the syntax of the language in passing). Moreover, the system is fundamentally functional (even sets are understood primarily as characteristic functions) and these functions are partial (so a function can be undefined for some arguments). Every entity of TIL has its logical type (cf. Tichý 1988, 65-66). In sum, TIL is a hyperintensional partial lambda calculus with types. Most technical details of TIL are unimportant for this paper, so I will stop here for the time being. Of course, one can ask: Why Tichý? Why this complicated system of TIL? Let me briefly motivate the project: First, Tichý sketched an interesting suggestion for an analysis of fictional names worth of further exploration. Indeed, this will be one of the aims of this paper. Second, Tichý extensively discussed so-called individual roles (offices, things-tobe) that have been also extensively discussed in the current TIL. One of the positions occurring in the literature concerned with the semantics of 2 See Jespersen & Duží (2015) on the notion of hyperintensionality. 386 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á fictional names is the so-called role realism.3 Though it is not an aim of this paper, I think that a comparison of the roles as understood by Tichý and the roles as understood by role realists might be fruitful. Third, a new cousin of the role realism can be formed using roles as understood by Tichý. I will outline and motivate such account, though, it shall be noted that I will not offer a comprehensive exposition and defence here. Fourth, fictional names are often thought to be non-referring (empty) expressions (see Braun 2005). TIL is partial, so emptiness is something that is not a problem for an advocate of TIL. Fifth, there are various issues concerning fictional names that call for a more sophisticated theory of meaning, or to say it frankly, that call for hyperintensionality. Again, I will stop here. I hope this suffices for the reader as an initial motivation. A short note on methodology: I will treat the theories of fictional names as providing us with semantic models. For instance, when I suggest to model fictional characters in terms of individual roles, I am not thereby suggesting that we should identify fictional characters with individual roles.4 The structure of the paper is as follows: First, I recapitulate Tichý's reasons for denying certain sort of descriptivism of fictional names. I further introduce and explain his analysis of fictional names in terms of free variables (section 2). Subsequently, I assess his analysis (section 3). I then explain his account of individual roles (section 4). I use Tichý's roles to sketch and motivate an alternative account of fictional names (section 5). The account is close to descriptivism, but it does not amount to the sort of descriptivism that Tichý criticised. The final section 6 anticipates and discusses some objections that can be directed to the approach suggested in the section 5. 3 The most important role realists are Nicholas Wolterstorff, Gregory Curie and Peter Lamarque; see Wolterstorff (1980), Curie (1990) and Lamarque (2008; 2010). 4 Note that this approach allows me to abstract from some properties of the "real thing"; cf. Bielik, Kosterec & Zouhar (2014, 112) and Bielik (2012). T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 387 2. The first analysis: fictional names as free variables The main aim of this section is to introduce and explain the analysis of fictional discourse suggested by Pavel Tichý. The analysis of fictional names was proposed in Tichý (1988); more precisely, it was merely sketched there because the whole account is explained on four pages (keep in mind, however, that the account presupposes the whole framework of TIL, as developed and defended in the book). Though some points may seem outright suspicious to the reader, I will postpone the assessment of the theory to the next section. When we use fictional names, Tichý claims, we "seem to name particular entities and yet are unable to say which entities they are" (Tichý 1988, 261). Because of this, fictional reference is for him a case of so-called unspecified reference. How to account for fictional reference, then? Tichý starts with showing us how an analysis should not look like: the section begins with the criticism of Fregean descriptivism of fictional names, thus paving the way for Tichý's own account.5 He mentions several problems faced by a descriptivist: 1. The choice problem: It is not clear how to extract essential features that should be incorporated in the sense of a fictional name such as Sherlock Holmes. If one suggests that we should incorporate every single detail mentioned in any of these stories that would mean that one could not understand the first story before finishing the last. If one suggests that each story gives the name its own sense that would mean that one could not understand the first sentence of the story before finishing the last sentence. Even if we suppose that we have somehow managed to extract such essential features from the Holmes stories as a whole (e.g., Sherlock Holmes is said to have the same sense as the pipe-smoking detective), there will still be many difficulties (see Tichý 1988, 262). 5 Tichý attributes the view directly to Frege, and discusses it only in the context of Frege's work. However, the analysis of fictional discourse was not central for Frege (he was repeatedly trying to put it aside). Moreover, the position goes under the caption descriptivism of fictional names in the current literature. I will thus speak directly of descriptivism. 388 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á 2. The problem of different truth-conditions: The sentence Sherlock Holmes played the violin can be true even if it does not hold that the pipesmoking detective played the violin (i.e. if it was not true that there was exactly one pipe-smoking detective and that he played the violin). The truth of the sentence with relevant description is not necessary for the truth of the corresponding sentence with a fictional name. Moreover, even if there was exactly one pipe-smoking detective, it would not follow that Sherlock Holmes is his name and that Doyle was writing about him. This is the famous Kripke's objection to descriptivism of proper names.6 In general, this means that the truth of the sentence with relevant description is not sufficient for the truth of the sentence with the fictional name in question. These sentences have different truth-conditions, so the relevant description can be hardly understood as a good analysis of the given fictional name. 3. The attitude problem: Tichý considers as a most troublesome difficulty for descriptivism the attitude the reader is supposed to take with respect to the thought expressed by the sentence containing fictional name – what sort of attitude it should be? Tichý claims that readers neither believe nor pretend to believe that the thought in question is true. However, readers nevertheless make some inferences concerning fictional names. The above criticism motivates the introduction of Tichý's own account. This account can be summed up as follows: 1. Fictional names are analysed in terms of free variables. 2. Tichý's two-dimensional theory of inference (inspired by Frege and Gentzen) is used for the analysis. 3. The logical analysis is provided in terms of TIL. Note that this is not the way how Tichý actually put forth his approach. Nevertheless, I think that the summary captures all crucial ingredients of his analysis. 6 Kripke (1972, 157) expressed the objection as follows: "The mere discovery that there was indeed a detective with exploits like those of Sherlock Holmes would not show that Doyle was writing about this man." T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 389 Example: A simple example will provide an explanation of these three requirements. Consider the overused sentence Sherlock Holmes is a detective. In the first-order logic, the most standard analysis will be simply D(s), where s is an individual constant and D is an individual predicate. I now gradually amend this analysis:7 1. D(x) 2. D(x) / D(x) 3. [0Dw x] / [0Dw x]8 Explanation: 1. The first amendment captures Tichý's requirement to analyse fictional names in terms of free variables. It can be understood as a case of logical form in the first order logic. 2. The second amendment incorporates Tichý's two-dimensional theory of inference. How to read this? One can find two readings in Tichý (1988, 263, 264), but it is not entirely clear which is the preferred one. First, one can read it as follows: for any individual, if the individual is a detective, then this individual is a detective (Tichý 1988, 263). Second, one can read it also in the following way: for any valuation, if the D(x) is true under this valuation, then D(x) is true under this valuation. 3. Finally, the third amendment comes with TIL analysis. I will not explain the whole foundations of TIL here (as mentioned above, one can find it in Tichý 1988, 56-66). However, I will explain this particular example. What is new in 3 is the construction [0Dw x]; it is an abbreviation of [[0D w] x]. This construction contains two free variables: w (for possible worlds) and x (for individuals). Not surprisingly, variables are also constructions. 0D is a construction called trivialisation. It takes the object 7 Again, proceeding in these ʻstepsʼ is a heuristic device that will help me to explain the analysis without explaining everything from the preceding more than 260 pages of the book. 8 This construction is abbreviated. I explain it below. Also, Tichý would include variables for time-moments, so, more precisely, his analysis would be [0Dwt x] / [0Dwt x]. However, since time-moments will be unimportant for the present discussion, I omit them to make the presentation simpler (and more comprehensible). 390 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á D and returns the very same object, the property of being a detective (a function from possible worlds to sets of individuals, where a set of individuals is understood as a function from individuals to truth-values). The brackets stand for the construction called composition. To put it simply, composition [0D w] consists in executing the construction 0D, thus obtaining the abovementioned mapping, executing w to obtain an argument of this mapping, and applying the mapping to the argument constructed by w, thus obtaining a function from individuals to truth-values (a set of individuals). Finally, the whole [[0D w ] x] consists in applying the latter mapping to the argument constructed by x, thus obtaining a truth-value. However, up to this point, I omitted one important issue: "As a variable itself, a construction containing a variable may construct one entity relative to one valuation and another entity relative to another" (Tichý 1988, 62). The promiscuous nature of free variables makes it the case. Because of this, constructions containing free variables are, in some sense, not self-sufficient, not independent, incomplete – open. Open construction is a TIL-version of the logical form from the first order logic.9 Of course, it is also needed to say which variables are free according to Tichý; (the definition is to be found in Tichý 1988, 73-74). In general, bound variables are of two sorts: variables bound by trivialisation and variables bound by λ operator (again, a new notion: to put it simply, λ helps us to generate functions by abstracting from particular values of arguments). Free variables are, quite straightforwardly, variables that are not bound. 3. Assessing the first analysis Let me now assess the analysis explained in the previous section. I, again, proceed along the three 'steps' introduced above. To begin with, I sum up some of its advantages. After that, I summarize some of its disadvantages. The list is not be exhaustive, but I mention the points that seem to be of the uttermost importance. 9 For more on the notion of logical form, see Duží & Materna (2005). T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 391 The first step safeguards the unspecified reference of fictional names (i.e., that a fictional name does not refer to a particular individual). Importantly, this requirement also assures that though fictional names do not refer to particular individuals, if the fiction contains (syntactically) different fictional names, they can be differentiated also at the level of semantics. This is so because they are analysed in terms of different free variables. For example, the sentence Watson is a friend of Sherlock Holmes can be (preliminarily) analysed as F(y, x). The importance of the above point stems from the fact that TIL involves so-called objectual theory of variables. This theory of variables assures that two variables are simply two different objects, they are not undifferentiated gaps.10 Because of this feature, the problem of co-identification, formulated by Stacie Friend, is avoided as well (see Friend 2014). This problem consists in the fact that when different people use the same fictional name, they seem to be talking about the same fictional character. However, antirealists about fictional characters maintain that there are no fictional characters – how to explain the seeming co-identification, if nothing is identified? Yet it was suggested that it is a problem for realists, too. Be it as it may, Tichý's theory does not lead to this problem: If one has two fictional names, one has two free variables. As Raclavský repeatedly indicated, the analysis also nicely captures how we read or write fiction in the initial stages, when we have neither a complete list of properties ascribed to a fictional character nor a complete list of relations between various fictional characters (see Raclavský 2009; 2015). Note also that this feature makes the theory a good candidate for a realist position resistant to some of the Everett's worries concerning the initial stages of creating a work of fiction (cf. Everett 2013, sec. 7.4). 10 Compare this with the Gappy Proposition Theory, for instance, the one formulated and defended in Braun (2005). David Braun struggled with the problem of differentiating between 'gaps'. The sentence Holmes is a detective seems to mean something different from what the sentence Watson is a detective means. Braun was trying to avoid descriptivism of fictional names, so these sentences are bound to express the same gappy proposition. His suggestion was to speak about different ways of believing. In this case, we can differentiate between ʻHolmes-ishʼ and ʻWatson-ishʼ ways. But how can one understood or formally model these different ways (while still avoiding descriptivism)? 392 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á Tichý motivates the second step as follows: "the reader of a fictional story is occasionally expected to draw inferences from what the text explicitly says" (Tichý 1988, 264). However, anything of the form A / A is a logical truth. Hence, it will be probably useful to invoke an analogy with a logical or mathematical system.11 Tautologies of the system are logically true in one system, but may be untrue in another. Similarly, sentences of the fiction are true in one fiction, but may be untrue in another.12 The third step allows us to take on board all the advantages of TIL – hyperintensionality, partiality, types, and so on. I do not recapitulate all the advantages of TIL here, since the reader can easily see it just by scanning the work done in the current TIL.13 Let me now turn to disadvantages. First, it is not clear how the choice problem (which Tichý attributes to descriptivism) is avoided: Which constructions should be taken as inputs for reader's inferences?14 And which logical, conceptual, or factual background assumptions are presupposed? Tichý does not seem to be counting with any factual assumptions, though these are needed for some obvious inferences (see Lewis 1978). As regards the second step, a sentence with a fictional name amount under this analysis to a trivial logical fact. Tichý anticipates complaints (since works of art do not seem to be composed of logical facts) and defends his account in the following way: "But this is hardly an objection to it as a construal of Doyle's sentence. One does not turn to fiction to learn anything new. If one wants to learn, one had better reach for a book on a non-fiction shelf" (Tichý 1988, 263). 11 Tichý seems to be approaching towards such an analogy (cf. Tichý 1988, 262-263), and it would facilitate the defence of his approach. But he does not venture far enough: maybe his objectual, realist stance on logic is behind this reticence (see the Preface in Tichý 1988, or the first chapter thereof for evidence). Yet by venturing too far I am not inviting the reader to abduce my views on logic. 12 Recall the ʻIn fiction Fʼ operator from Lewis' (1978) crucial paper. 13 E.g., see the contents of Duží, Jespersen & Materna (2010) or Raclavský (2009). 14 One of the reviewers did not agree that the choice problem is a problem for Tichý's analysis, suggesting that we should take as an input simply those that can be seen as meanings of the sentences of the respective stories. But a role realist can employ the very same strategy. The choice problem cannot help us in deciding between Tichý's original approach and a version of role realism based on TIL (see Section 5). T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 393 I disagree. We learn something even when we read novels – we learn about the content of the relevant novel (e.g., a literature student can use this knowledge afterwards – during tests, exams, while writing a paper, for a research in the field of literary criticism, etc.).15 While the sentence Sherlock Holmes was a pipe-smoking detective entails that Sherlock Holmes was a pipe-smoking detective is not informative (e.g., for a reader, for a literary critic), the sentence Sherlock Holmes was a pipe-smoking detective is informative. When we find such sentence in the Holmes stories, we indeed learn something about the content of the work, about the character of Sherlock Holmes, etc. Therefore, while I agree that Sherlock Holmes was a pipe-smoking detective entails that Sherlock Holmes was a pipe-smoking detective "does not represent an interesting piece of knowledge", I do not agree that it is not an objection to Tichý's account. Indeed, it is an objection to his account as a construal of Doyle's sentence Sherlock Holmes was a pipe-smoking detective, since this sentence is in some sense informative – in a sense in which Tichý's analysis of this sentence is not. Furthermore, novels often contain some factual claims, personal view and attitudes of the author, some moral or aesthetic judgements etc. (consider any deeply personal novel, for instance, Bukowski's Ham on Rye; if the movies were included, Woody Allen would give us a plenitude of good examples). Many novels are also partly based on historical events and are describing real people (for example, consider the novel about Gödel and his wife, The Goddess of Small Victories, written by Y. Grannec). Another serious trouble was suggested by one of the anonymous reviewers. Variables are always proper (a variable is evaluated under every valuation). Therefore, Tichý's analysis counts as a realistic one. How to read nonexistence claims then? It is not easy to see how this account could possibly make sense of sentences such as "Sherlock Holmes does not exist". Also, whilst free variables may be plausible candidates for explaining the initial stages of writing / engaging with some fiction, they do not seem 15 Sometimes we even learn new factual information, since writers often use real cities, real events, and write true things about them. Yet the sort of information I had in mind is more closely related to the notion of analytic information as employed in Duží (2010). 394 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á as plausible candidates for things we love, hate, admire, etc., when we take some emotional attitudes towards works of fiction. Jiří Raclavský has mentioned another worry in one of his papers (see Raclavský 2007), namely that it is not always clear whether the given name is fictional or not. For instance, how can one know whether some name occurring in a certain novel is a proper name of a real person (not described in the novel with a historic accuracy) or a fictional names of a fictional character (based or modelled on some real person)? Yet this problem is probably not specific to Tichý's account. These were the most serious advantages and disadvantages of Tichý's analysis. Let me now proceed towards an alternative account, an analysis in terms of Tichý's notion of individual roles. 4. Tichý's individual roles In section 2, I have sketched Tichý's reasons for denying certain sort of descriptivism of fictional names. However, definite descriptions that a descriptivist uses to analyse fictional names are, indeed, very similar to unspecified reference. Consider a case when one uses a definite description, e.g., the president of France. This description does not explicitly mention any specific individual who occupies the French presidential office. Furthermore, there are cases when one uses a definite description and is not, for good reasons, able to tell the reference: e.g., when seeking who the murderer is. Moreover, there are cases when a definite description necessarily does not have a referent – consider the famous Quine's example of the round square cupola on Berkeley College. Tichý devoted much attention to the analysis of definite descriptions. He analysed them in terms of his notion of an individual role (office, thing-to-be). The plan of this section is to explain his account of these individual roles. Tichý's most extensive exposition of this notion is to be found in his Individuals and Their Roles (see Tichý 2004a).16 Intuitively, 16 The first version of the text appeared in his unpublished manuscript The Introduction to Intensional Logic from 1976 (in English). It was reworked and published in 1987 (in German), its Slovak translation was published in 1994 and finally, the English translation was published as Tichý (2004a). I quote from the (2004a) version. T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 395 an individual office is something an individual can be: for instance, the description the president of France changes its extension as time goes by. The president of France denotes something that an individual can be – an office, a role. There are several important features of individual offices that need to be mentioned here: 1. Roles have requisites: A requisite is "what it takes for a material object to hold that office" (Tichý 2004a, 717). For instance, "the property of being a king is a requisite of the office of King of France, such that every occupant must have the relevant property" (Duží, Jespersen & Materna 2010, 128).17 2. Roles have properties: the President of France is an eligible office; the President of France exists (is occupied), the King of France does not exist (is not occupied). 3. Roles are abstract entities: they are not to be confused with individuals actually occupying them (if there are any). 4. Roles can be occupied by different individuals at different possible worlds and times. 5. Roles may be indeterminate: "A thing-to-be ... may be largely indeterminate as to physical properties ... A thing-to-be, i.e., an office occupiable by material objects is not the sort of thing which might conceivably have a weight, precise or vague" (Tichý 2004a, 716-717). 6. Roles can be unoccupied: "Given a thing-to-be, it may happen that nothing is it; it may happen that there is no such thing... nothing even remotely similar can be said of a material body" (Tichý 2004a, 716). 7. Roles are objects on its own right, so one can quantify over them. 8. Roles are given, or determined by certain constructions. If one invokes the Fregean sense and reference distinction,18 one can say that these 17 Surely, this is just an intuitive explanation, not a precise definition. See section 6 where I discuss this notion more extensively. 18 Fregean, not Frege's. Frege used these terms differently. He did not employ constructions in the first place. Also, the reference was for him usually an extensional entity. Here the constructions represent sense and intensions reference. What is borrowed 396 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á constructions are senses of definite descriptions and roles are their reference. 9. One can also have various attitudes to these roles, or to constructions determining these roles; moreover, one can talk about these roles (or constructions denoting them) and compare various roles, talk about their properties and requisites, etc. Interestingly enough, Tichý mentions the fictional name Sherlock Holmes in the discussed paper. He considers the sentence Sherlock Holmes does not exist and asks: "whom do I deny existence of? Sherlock Holmes, i.e., a person? Hardly. As is well known, none of the persons in the world is Sherlock Holmes. It thus appears that ... I deny existence of nothing at all" (Tichý 2004a, 720). Afterwards, he writes that the same goes for his new Rolls-Royce when saying My new Rolls-Royce does not exist (the latter was analysed in terms of roles). However, his new Rolls-Royce is a role – what about Sherlock Holmes? Moreover, though Duží, Jespersen & Materna (2010) agree with the first analysis proposed by Tichý (fictional names as free variables), they analyse the name Santa Claus in terms of roles (see Duží, Jespersen & Materna 2010, 90-92). Yet the name Santa Claus seems to be similar to the name Sherlock Holmes. In this paragraph, I was just trying to show that the possibility to analyse fictional names in terms of roles is not entirely extraneous to TIL. Let me now explore this possibility. 5. The second analysis: fictional names as individual roles A closer look at the characteristics of roles 1-9 from the preceding section reveals that it may be promising to use this account of roles for the analysis of fictional names. Indeed, this is something what I will do in this section. Let me start with the following proposal: Fictional names should be analysed in terms of individual roles (as characterised in the preceding section). However, these individual from Frege is just the metaphorical understanding of the sense as a way of giving the reference. T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 397 roles are necessarily non-occupied (empty). As it is with the other expressions, we can pronounce a fictional name to speak about its sense (a construction), about its reference (a role), or about its extension (which, as it should be clear, does not exist). I follow the characteristics 1-9 and explain their usefulness for the analysis: 1. Requisites are helpful in analysing the properties ascribed to fictional characters by the authors, such as Sherlock Holmes is a pipe-smoking detective: If there was someone fulfilling the role of Sherlock Holmes, this entity would be a pipe-smoking detective. It is literally true that a role of Sherlock Holmes has this requisite: it does not matter that the office of Sherlock Holmes is not occupied. A similar strategy can be used for ascribing many other properties as requisites for being that fictional character (weight, height, age...).19 2. Properties are useful for the analysis of sentences such as Sherlock Holmes is a fictional entity or (the character) Sherlock Holmes is famous. A quite tough sentence Sherlock Holmes was created by Conan Doyle can be analysed thanks to properties of roles as well. Intuitively, the creation of Sherlock Holmes consists simply in the fact that Doyle picked an expression or introduced a new one for his character and chose some initial properties. This can be captured as a role property of being firstly described by Doyle. This is, of course, a sort of creation in the spirit of role realism (cf. Wolterstorff 1980; see also the distinction between characters per se 19 I won't go into details here, but this is not the only reading of such sentences that we can get. If we employ de dicto and de re distinction, as I surely would do in a more comprehensive exposition of my views, we can distinguish: (i) Sherlock Holmes (de dicto) has a requisite (= first order property)... (ii) Sherlock Holmes (de dicto) has a (second order) property... (iii) Sherlock Holmes (de re) has a (first order) property... The sentences of the form (i) and (ii) can be literally true, if the role of Sherlock Holmes has the respective requisite (e.g., being a pipe-smoking detective) or the respective property (e.g., being a famous fictional character or being non-occupied), whilst no sentence of the form (iii) will be true, since there is no "res", no occupant of the Sherlock Holmes office. 398 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á and fictional characters in Lamarque 2010, 201), which would not satisfy all theoreticians.20 3. The fact that roles are abstract entities makes them intersubjective. From the ontological point of view, it is important that this approach does not postulate any new entities (roles are needed also for the analysis of nonfictional discourse). In addition, roles are no queer entities; they are baked from the very same ingredients as properties or relations. It can be seen that this approach adopts a middle way between realism and irrealism (as understood in Sainsbury 2009). It is not a genuine realist approach, since it does not claim that there is a ʻrobustʼ Sherlock Holmes (occupying the individual office of Sherlock Holmes); and it is not a genuine irrealist approach, since individual offices are abstract entities (but are no more ʻexoticʼ than numbers and sets). 4. The fact that roles can be occupied by different individuals is not important here, since these roles are necessarily empty.21 5. Indeterminacy is crucial, since fictional characters are not described completely. 6. The fact that roles can be empty is crucial too: since there are no entities named by fictional names, there is no real Sherlock Holmes. This is important for the non-existence claims, such as the claim that Holmes does not exist.22 7. The possibility of quantification over fictional characters is important for the analysis of sentences such as Many characters occurring in Murakami's novels are sad. The same goes for sentences comparing different fictions. 20 For instance, Amie Thomasson, an abstract artifactualist, criticised this way of approaching the authorial creation; see Thomasson (2009). 21 Currie (1990) would not agree with this point (see section 6). 22 One of the reviewers claimed that there could be only one trivialization of necessary empty role in TIL, so every fictional name would have the same meaning. It depends on the identity criteria of constructions in general and constructions of necessarily empty roles in particular. I do not see any obstacle in differentiating between different (constructions of) empty roles on the basis of their requisites. E.g., the meaning of Holmes is different from the meaning of Watson, because the requisites for being Holmes differ from the requisites for being Watson. T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 399 8. Constructions are important here for many reasons, but the most crucial one is this: Since the reference of a fictional name is a necessarily empty role, one needs something to differentiate between various empty roles. This falls within the competence of constructions. They can embody the ʻHolmes-ishʼ and ʻWatson-ishʼ ways of believing, in an exact way. 9. We sometimes hate, love, pity, envy or simply think about fictional characters. All these are attitudes. It is thus desirable that this approach can acknowledge this issue. Who do girls love, when they love, for instance, Mr. Darcy? Surely not some real, full-blooded entity, since (unfortunately) there is no such entity. They love a fictional character. All they have is a fictional name, a bunch of words describing this fictional character, the respective bunch of meanings, and probably also corresponding imagination of the fictional character. Yet my imagination of Mr. Darcy is surely not identical to him, since it is subjective, and not intersubjective. An intersubjective entity is needed if we want to make sense of sentences such as "Many girls love Mr. Darcy" or "There is a fictional character that many girls love, namely, Mr. Darcy." 6. Possible objections The first difficulty, and perhaps the most serious one, is the already explained Kripke's objection (see footnote 5 of this paper). I am not willing to bite the bullet (as Currie partly does in his 1990, 180) and say that I can be Sherlock Holmes. Nor I am willing to say that there can be Sherlock Holmes, since as I understand the expression "Sherlock Holmes", if it stands for anything, it stands for that fictional character from Doyle stories. As Kripke maintained, even if someone very similar happened to exist, it would still not suffice for saying that Doyle was writing about this man (similarly, if a winged horse-like creature appeared, it would not suffice for saying that Pegasus is real after all). If someone asked us where the grave of Sherlock Holmes is, we would see it either as a joke or as a terrible misunderstanding. Under the supposition that Sherlock Holmes cannot exist Kripke's objection is easily avoided as soon as there is something blocking the occupation in the case of the actual existence of an individual satisfying all the properties explicitly ascribed to the fictional character by the author of the fiction in question. As I formulated the analysis, fictional 400 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á characters are necessarily empty roles. However, a precise formulation of the role property blocking the occupation is still needed. Whether we accept the supposition that the role of Sherlock Holmes is necessarily empty or not, I maintain that this issue needs to be resolved before the actual analysis can start. We need to know whether some term is a fictional name (a name of a purely fictional character) or a genuine individual proper name (a name of a real person). Since fictional characters are not real individuals, this matter is of semantic significance (under the supposition of Millianism). And the resolution may be sensitive to the purpose of the subsequent analysis (see below the answer to the choice problem). A related objection pertains to the notion of requisites. As Miloš Kosterec has reminded me several times, if fictional characters are modelled in terms of necessarily empty roles, requisites cannot be defined as Duží, Jespersen and Materna suggest in their (2010, 361-362), for every property would be a requisite of such roles. This is a serious worry, but there are some options how to deal with it. One option is to take Currie's route (mentioned above) and admit that it is possible that there was real Sherlock Holmes (indeed, one of the reviewers was suggesting precisely this). Another option is to use definitions of requisites from the above book, but change the material implication for some other sort of implication. A further option is to treat the notion of requisites as primitive. Finally, my preferred option is to define the requisites in terms of the content of the respective work of fiction. Note, however, that there are principal reasons why the essential properties cannot be defined once and for all: identity of fictional characters is interest relative, and so is the extent of their essential properties (again, see below). Also, note that the issue of determining requisites would then be closely connected to another task, that of determining truth in fiction (see Lewis 1978). Another worry is the choice problem. I am sympathetic to the reply along the lines of Lamarque (2010, 200) who argues that "fictional characters are initiated types, grounded in acts of story-telling, i.e. fictional narratives, although not essentially bound to anyone, even if tied to a reasonably determinate historico-cultural context. Their identity is interest-relative depending on demands placed on their identity conditions, which in turn determine the extent of their essential properties." If one aims to compare Sherlock Holmes from Doyle stories to his counterpart from modern T I C H Ý A N D F I C T I O N A L N A M E S 401 Holmes series, it may be useful to treat them as different fictional characters. If one aims to compare Holmes to other fictional detectives, it may be useful to treat old and modern Sherlock Holmes as one character. If one judges Grannec's novel as a biography about Kurt Gödel, no differentiation between the real and the fictional Gödel is made, and if something false is said about him, it may be properly said that Grannec made a mistake. On the other hand, if we read the piece just as a novel, the real Gödel is distinguished from the fictional one, and it makes no sense to criticize Grannec for making the fictional Kurt different from the real one. I think that this sort of sensitivity is widespread, it exists in reality and needs to be acknowledged by theories of fictional characters. Furthermore, by opting for a role-based analysis of fictional names, one is either denying the claim that all proper names are directly referential expressions, or one is denying that all fictional names are proper names. I prefer the latter. For most, however, it is not even an option to question the status of fictional names as proper names (cf. Friend 2014). On the other hand, some would opt precisely for this suggestion: "We should not start by assuming that fictional names are genuine proper names. We need to know more about fictional names and proper names before we can decide whether they are" (Currie 1990, 128). Let me now consider these two options. Direct reference theory of proper names says that proper names refer to individuals irrespective of the properties exemplified by these individuals. It is a plausible, intuitively appealing view, enjoying the great popularity. Woody Allen would have been Woody Allen even if he had not directed Annie Hall and even if he had not been a director at all. His name is due to naming conventions, not the facts of his life. On the other hand, it seems that fictional names are not directly referential. Follow my simple line of reasoning: to begin with, take an arbitrary fictional name (say, let us pick again the overused Sherlock Holmes). First, if Sherlock Holmes fails to refer, it is not a directly referential expression (since it is not a referential expression). Second, if this expression refers (in the sense that it has an extension), this extension must be a tall man, a detective, must live at the Baker Street, and must have properties explicitly ascribed to him. So, in this case, it is again not a directly referential expression (it refers, but not directly). Be it as it may, this expression is not a directly referential expression. 402 D A N I E L A G L AVAN I ČOV Á The above thoughts motivate the following: no fictional name is directly referential, but all genuine proper names are directly referential. This entails that fictional names are not proper names, so the unity is lost. Is that a problem? I don't think so. Yes, the syntactic form of fictional names suggests that they belong to the family of proper names. But there is also a considerable dissimilarity between the way fictional names function in the language and the way genuine proper names function in the language (even ignoring the above claim that fictional names are not directly referential). For instance, if one wants to name a child, one has an individual given in advance, and one wants to name this given individual. This is not the case in fiction. The author chooses an expression that will serve as a fictional name and some initial properties that will be ascribed to the character – though there may be some mental idea of this fictional character given in advance, but this idea is not identical to this character – the character is not yet born. Moreover, there are considerable differences in the identity conditions. While no individual is identical to another individual (numerical identity), the case of fictional characters is not that strict. Recall the quote from Lamarque (2010, 200) saying that identity of fictional characters is interest relative. Nothing remotely similar can be said of individuals and their proper names. Acknowledgments This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-0149-12. The paper is based on my talk presented at the conference Philosophy of Language (I): Semantics of Fictional Discourse: I am indebted to all who participated in the fruitful discussion. I am also grateful to the research group of the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences for letting me join their seminars. Without them, this paper would not come into existence. I am grateful to Miloš Kosterec, Róbert Maco, Marián Zouhar and Zsófia Zvolenszky for discussions. Thanks go also to reviewers for numerous useful suggestions and objections. References BIELIK, L. (2012): How to Assess Theories of Meaning? Some Notes on the Methodology of Semantics. 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