Against Truth-Conditional Theories of Meaning: Three Lessons from the Language(s) of Fiction

Fictional discourse and fictional languages provide useful test cases for theories of meaning. In this paper, we argue against truth-conditional accounts of meaning on the basis of problems posed by language(s) of fiction. It is well-known how fictional discourse -- discourse about non-existent objects -- poses a problem for truth-conditional theories of meaning. Less well-considered, however, are the problems posed by fictional languages, which can be created to either be meaningful or not to be meaningful; both of these ultimately also provide problems for a truth-conditional account of meaning, because it cannot account for the ways in which we use and evaluate such fictional languages.