Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T09:44:34.627Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Description, Disagreement, and Fictional Names

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2019

Peter Alward
Peter Alward*
Affiliation:
University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, CanadaT1K 3M4
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper, a theory of the contents of fictional names — names of fictional people, places, etc. — will be developed. The fundamental datum that must be addressed by such a theory is that fictional names are, in an important sense, empty: the entities to which they putatively refer do not exist. Nevertheless, they make substantial contributions to the truth conditions of sentences in which they occur. Not only do such sentences have truth conditions, sentences differing only in the fictional names they contain differ in their truth conditions. It is, after all, commonplace to note such things as, for example, that

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit

is true, and

Sherlock Holmes is a hobbit

is false, while acknowledging at the same time that neither Baggins nor Holmes exists. The central problem, therefore, is that of reconciling the emptiness of fictional names with their substantial contributions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 2011 , pp. 423 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alward, P. 2000. ‘Simple and Sophisticated ‘Naïve’ Semantics.’ Dialogue 39: 101–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alward, P. 2006. ‘Leave Me Out of It: De Re , but not De Se, Imaginative Engagement with Fiction.’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64: 451–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alward, P. 2007. ‘For the Ubiquity of Nonactual Fact-Telling Narrators.’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65: 401–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alward, P. 2009. ‘Cluster Theory: Resurrection.’ Dialogue 48: 269–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alward, P. 2010. ‘That's the Fictional Truth, Ruth.’ Acta Analytica 25: 347–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alward, P. Forthcoming. Empty Revelations: An Essay on Talk About, and Attitudes Toward, Fiction. Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Cappelen, H. and E. Lepore. 2005. Insensitive Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, G. 1990. The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everett, A. 2005. ‘Against Fictional Realism.’ The Journal of Philosophy 102: 624—49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, G. 1997. ‘On Sense and Reference.’ In The Frege Reader, Beaney, M. ed. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kripke, S. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kroon, F. 1994. ‘Make-Believe and Fictional Reference.’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52: 207–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. 1978. ‘Truth in Fiction.’ American Philosophical Quarterly 15: 37–46.Google Scholar
Matravers, D. 1997. ‘The Paradox of Fiction.’ In Emotion and the Arts, Hjort, M. and Laver, S. eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Brian, P. 1979. The Fortune of War. New York: Collins.Google Scholar
O'Brian, P.. 1983. Treason's Harbour. New York: Collins.Google Scholar
Parsons, T. 1980. Non-Existent Objects. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, N. 1986. Frege's Puzzle. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, K. 2000. ‘Emptiness without Compromise.’ In Empty Names: Fiction and Puzzles of Non-Existence, Everett, A. and Hofweber, T. eds. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Thomasson, A. 1998. Fiction and Metaphysics. New York: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, K. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar