Fictions Are All in the Mind

Revue Internationale de Philosophie 262 (4):593-614 (2012)
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Abstract

Poetic license is an essential feature of intentionality. The mind is free to think about any objects, even objects with logically incompatible properties. Some philosophers maintain that a theory that embraces an ontology of objects of thought is indispensable to any account of the nature of intentionality. Any such theory, however, must face paradoxes whose solutions conflict with poetic license. In this paper, I propose a theory which rejects the argument from indispensability. The theory maintains that the intentionality of thought is produced by the quantificational nature of the apparatus of thought. All de re ascriptions of propositional attitudes must respect simple-type stratification and quantify over concepts with a predicable nature only. There are no fictional objects. There are concepts which, in the impredicative reflections of quantificational thought, are presented as if objects of thought.

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Gregory Landini
University of Iowa

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References found in this work

The Causal Theory of Names.Gareth Evans - 1973 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 47 (1):187–208.
Intentional identity.P. T. Geach - 1967 - Journal of Philosophy 64 (20):627-632.
Abstract Objects.Edward N. Zalta - 1983 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 90 (1):135-137.

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