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Worlds are colliding! Explaining the fictional in terms of the real

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Abstract

I discuss Gregory Currie’s taxonomy of explanations of the fictional. On the one hand, there is an important kind of relation between internal and external explanations of some fictional truths that Currie leaves out, where both are salient and yet in a relation of harmony with each other. On the other hand, I do not see that he has established that there is a genuine relation of tension between some pairs of internal and external explanations, and thus I question the usefulness of the category of collapse. I also consider a further kind of explanation: the exterior explanation.

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Notes

  1. Seinfeld, ‘The Pool Guy’, season 7, episode 8.

  2. One might wonder, of course, about the need for realism in this detail, but I won’t do so here.

  3. For a consideration of various ‘levels’ of a fiction and their relation to ontology and interpretation, see Goldman (2002).

  4. This is a simplification in terms of magical externalism, for, of course, it is not the evidence itself, but the details of Oedipa’s discovery of it that are responsible for the ambiguity and circumstantiality. If Pynchon really were a demigod who had created a world, there would be no ambiguity (presuming certain logical limits on demigods). There would either be a conspiracy or not, depending on the details of the world he had created.

References

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  • Goldman, A. (2002). The sun also rises: Incompatible interpretations. In M. Krausz (Ed.), Is there a single right interpretation? (pp. 9–25). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX, 78212-7200, USA

    Andrew Kania

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  1. Andrew Kania
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Correspondence to Andrew Kania.

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Kania, A. Worlds are colliding! Explaining the fictional in terms of the real. Philos Stud 135, 65–71 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9093-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9093-0

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