scholarly journals Singular Reference in Fictional Discourse?

Disputatio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (54) ◽  
pp. 143-177
Author(s):  
Manuel García-Carpintero
Keyword(s):  
Special Problem ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Simple Sentence ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
Singular Reference ◽  
Fictional Names

Abstract Singular terms used in fictions for fictional characters raise well-known philosophical issues, explored in depth in the literature. But philosophers typically assume that names already in use to refer to “moderatesized specimens of dry goods” cause no special problem when occurring in fictions, behaving there as they ordinarily do in straightforward assertions. In this paper I continue a debate with Stacie Friend, arguing against this for the exceptionalist view that names of real entities in fictional discourse don’t work there as they do in simple-sentence assertions, but rather as fictional names do.

The Language of Fiction

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
New Research ◽  
Fictional Names ◽  
Philosophy Of Fiction ◽  
And Linguistics ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Fictional Story ◽  
Fictional Truth

The Language of Fiction brings together new research on fiction from philosophy and linguistics. Fiction is a topic that has long been studied in philosophy. Yet recently there has been a surge of work on fictional discourse in the intersection between linguistics and philosophy of language. There has been a growing interest in examining long-standing issues concerning fiction from a perspective informed both by philosophy and linguistic theory. The Language of Fiction contains fourteen essays by leading scholars in both fields, as well as a substantial Introduction by the editors. The collection is organized in three parts, each with their own introduction. Part I, “Truth, reference, and imagination”, offers new, interdisciplinary perspectives on some of the central themes from the philosophy of fiction: What is fictional truth? How do fictional names refer? What kind of speech act is involved in telling a fictional story? What is the relation between fiction and imagination? Part II, “Storytelling”, deals with themes originating from the study of narrative: How do we infer a coherent story from a sequence of event descriptions? And how do we interpret the words of impersonal or unreliable narrators? Part III, “Perspective shift”, zooms in on an alleged key characteristic of fictional narratives, viz. the way we get access to the fictional characters’ inner lives, through a variety of literary techniques for representing what they say, think, or see.

Singular Terms, Identity, and the Creation of Fictional Characters

Disputatio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (54) ◽  
pp. 207-229
Author(s):  
Matthieu Fontaine
Keyword(s):  
Original Work ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Inference Rules ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Abstract Artifacts

Abstract How to interpret singular terms in fiction? In this paper, we address this semantic question from the perspective of the Artifactual Theory of Fiction (ATF). According to the ATF, fictional characters exist as abstract artifacts created by their author, and preserved through the existence of copies of an original work and a competent readership. We pretend that a well-suited semantics for the ATF can be defined with respect to a modal framework by means of Hintikka’s world lines semantics. The question of the interpretation of proper names is asked in relation to two inference rules, problematic when applied in intensional contexts: the Substitution of Identicals and Existential Generalization. The former fails because identity is contingent. The latter because proper names are not necessarily linked to well-identified individuals. This motivates a non-rigid interpretation of proper names in fiction, although cross-fictional reference (e.g. to real entities) is made possible by the interpretative efforts of the reader.

Rethinking Role Realism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Glavaničová
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Realist Theory ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Individual Concepts ◽  
Gregory Currie ◽  
Fictional Names

Abstract Role realism is a promising realist theory of fictional names. Different versions of this theory have been suggested by Gregory Currie, Peter Lamarque, Stein Haugom Olsen, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The general idea behind the approach is that fictional characters are to be analysed in terms of roles, which in turn can be understood as sets of properties (or alternatively as kinds or functions from possible worlds to individuals). I will discuss several advantages and disadvantages of this approach. I will then propose a novel hyperintensional version of role realism (which I will call impossibilism), according to which fictional names are analysed in terms of individual concepts that cannot be matched by a reference (a full-blooded individual). I will argue that this account avoids the main disadvantages of standard role realism.

Inferentialism and Singular Reference

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark McCullagh
Keyword(s):  
Singular Terms ◽  
Inferential Role ◽  
Robert Brandom ◽  
Binary Partition ◽  
Singular Reference

In Making It Explicit (1994) Robert Brandom claims that we may distinguish those linguistic expressions with object-representational purport — the singular terms — from others merely by the structure of their inferential relations. A good part of his inferentialist program rests on this claim. At first blush it can seem implausible: linguistic expressions stand in inferential relations to each other, so how could we appeal to those relations to decide on the obtaining of what seems to be relation between linguistic expressions and objects in general (viz., x purports to represent y)? It is perhaps not surprising then that Brandom's proposal fails. But it definitely is surprising how it fails. The problem is that in order to specify the sort of generality there is to an expression's inferential role, one must appeal to some version of the traditional distinction between extensional and nonextensional occurrences of expressions, and there appears to be no way to draw anything like that distinction in inferentialist terms. For the inferential proprieties governing the different occurrences an expression can have are so varied that they do not determine a binary partition of those occurrences.

Fiction

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lamarque
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Abstract Entities ◽  
General Semantics ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Fictional Names

Aspects of fiction or fictionality have long intrigued and puzzled philosophers across a surprisingly wide range of the subject, including metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, and aesthetics. What is fiction exactly, and how is it distinguished from nonfiction? One prominent set of problems relates to fictional names (such as “Sherlock Holmes,” “the Time Machine,” “Casterbridge”), concerning how they might fit into a general semantics for natural languages. Should they be eliminated by paraphrase or should they be acknowledged as proper names, albeit referring to nonreal items? Related problems arise for ontology. Should we admit fictional entities into our ontology, affording them some kind of being (as abstract entities, perhaps, or as possible objects)? Or again, should we find ways to eliminate them? Another difficulty stems from the fact that well-developed fictional characters in realist novels can often seem more real than actual people. Not only are they spoken and thought about but they can also occupy a significant role in ordinary people’s lives, including their emotional lives. How can this be explained? How can people respond with such powerful feelings to beings they know are merely made up? Also, how is it that readers sometimes have difficulty imagining the content of stories? Philosophers writing in aesthetics about literature as an art form have explored the modes of representing fictional characters, the values storytelling might have, and the potential for works of literary fiction to convey truths about the real world. Finally, appeals to fiction are sometimes made to explain whole areas of discourse, such as mathematics or morals, where there is a reluctance to admit familiar kinds of propositions as literal truths because of their ontological commitments. Thus, “fictionalism” has been promoted: the idea that strictly speaking it is better to view the discourse as a species of fiction, even while acting as if the discourse contained straightforward truths.

Reference and Representation in Thought and Language

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Medical Doctor ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Demonstrative Pronouns ◽  
Singular Reference ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Singular Representation

The chapters in this volume deal with our devices for singular reference and singular representation, taking them in different ways. The precise relation between using a linguistic expression to refer to an object and our mental representation of it has always been, and still is, one of the key topics of debate in philosophy of language, linguistics, and the cognitive sciences. Most essays focus specifically on singular terms, that is, linguistic expressions that, at least prima facie, are used to refer to particular objects, persons, places, and so on. They include proper names (“Mary,” “John”), indexicals (“I,” “tomorrow”), demonstrative pronouns (“this,” “that”) and perhaps (some uses of) definite and indefinite descriptions (“the queen of England,” “a medical doctor”), as well as complex demonstratives (“that woman”). Some of the essays do not directly deal with reference but with representation: the ways we represent objects in thought, especially the first-person perspective and a particular object of representation—the self. And there is also an essay that explores a notion common to reference and representation: salience. Salience is a pervasive notion in language and thought, and it is approached here from an intercultural perspective. The volume includes the latest views on these complex topics, expounded by some of the most prominent authors in linguistics and philosophy of language.

scholarly journals Talking about Hamlet

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Everett
Keyword(s):  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Fictional Names

AbstractOne argument for fictional realism, the view that there are such things as fictional characters, proceeds by arguing that we need to accept there are fictional characters in order to provide an adequate account of intuitively true and meaningful reports containing fictional names, reports such as »In

scholarly journals Making the Lightness of Being Bearable: Arithmetical Platonism, Fictional Realism and Cognitive Command

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-487
Author(s):  
Bill Wringe
Keyword(s):  
Singular Term ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Singular Terms

In this paper I wish to defend a minimalist version of arithmetical Platonism — which I shall refer to as ‘minimal Platonism’ — from an objection which alleges that an advocate of this view is committed to an unduly capacious ontology. The objection, which I shall call the ‘Lightness of Being’ objection, runs as follows. The minimal Platonist is committed to the claim that arithmetical objects, such as numbers, exist provided that two conditions are met. The first is that terms for numerals are singular terms — where something's being a singular term is judged on the basis of purely syntactic criteria. The second is that some sentences in which these singular terms feature are non-trivially true. However, the names of fictional characters are also singular terms (when judged by the metaphysically lightweight criteria used by advocates of minimal Platonism).

scholarly journals Fictional entities as artifacts: some problems for Amie Thomasson’s theory

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Andrej Jandric
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
Study Evaluation ◽  
Fictional Entities ◽  
The Common ◽  
Hybrid Account ◽  
Literary Practices ◽  
Intentional Acts ◽  
Amie Thomasson

Amie Thomasson has developed a theory of fictional entities, according to which they exist as contingent abstract objects. In her view, fictional characters are cultural artifacts just as the works of fiction they feature in. They are doubly dependent objects: for their becoming they depend on creative intentional acts of their author, and for maintaining their existence they depend on preservation of a copy of any fictional work they appear in. Thomasson claims that her theory has the advantage of vindicating the common beliefs about fictional entities embodied in the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature. However, I argue that, under this theory of fictional entities, no account of reference of fictional singular terms ? neither the descriptive, nor the causal, nor Thomasson?s preferred hybrid account ? can accommodate all the aspects of our literary practices.

Malebranche’s Neoplatonic Semantic Theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
John N. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Correspondence Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Semantic Theory ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
Existential Import ◽  
Correspondence Theory Of Truth ◽  
Singular Reference ◽  
Indirect Reference ◽  
Indirect Perception

Abstract This paper argues that Malebranche’s semantics sheds light on his metaphysics and epistemology, and is of interest in its own right. By recasting issues linguistically, it shows that Malebranche assumes a Neoplatonic semantic structure within Descartes’ dualism and Augustine’s theory of illumination, and employs linguistic devices from the Neoplatonic tradition. Viewed semantically, mental states of illumination stand to God and his ideas as predicates stand in Neoplatonic semantics to ideas ordered by a privative relation on “being.” The framework sheds light on interpretive puzzles in Malebranche studies such as the way ideas reside in God’s mind, the notion of resemblance by which bodies imitate their exemplar causes, and the issue of direct vs. indirect perception through a mechanism by which agents can see bodies by “seeing” ideas. Malebranche’s semantics is of interest in its own right because it gives a full (if implausible) account of the mediating relations that determine indirect reference; lays out a correspondence theory of truth for necessary judgments; defines contingent truth as based on an indirect reference relation that is both descriptive and causal but that does not appeal to body-mind causation; and within his theory of perception, works out an account of singular reference in which singular terms carry existential import, refer indirectly via causal relations, but describe their referents only in a general way.

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