scholarly journals Actualism and Fictional Characters

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
André Leclerc
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Moore’S Paradox ◽  
Material Basis ◽  
Fictional Entities ◽  
Moore's Paradox ◽  
Amie Thomasson

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2016v20n1p61In what follows, I present only part of a program that consists in developing a version of actualism as an adequate framework for the metaphysics of intentionality. I will try to accommodate in that framework suggestions found in Kripke’s works and some positions developed by Amie Thomasson. What should we change if we accept “fictional entities” in the domain of the actual world? Actualism is the thesis that everything that exists belongs to the domain of the actual world and that there are no possibilia. I shall defend that there are abstract artefacts, like fictional characters, and institutions. My argument could be seen as a version of Moore’s paradox: it is paradoxical to say: “I made (created) it, but I do not believe it exists”. Moreover, there are true sentences about them. I will examine what it means to include abstract artefacts in the domain of the actual world. I favour a use of “exist” that includes beings with no concrete occupation of tri-dimensional space; to exist, it is enough to have been introduced at some moment in history. Abstract artefacts, like fictional characters, exist in that sense. I argue that it is important to distinguish two perspectives (internal and external) in order to clarify the kind of knowledge we have of fictional characters. However, their existence presupposes a relation of dependence to a material basis and the mental activities of many people.

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.

scholarly journals Moore'S paradox: one or two?

Analysis ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. N. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Moore’S Paradox ◽  
Moore's Paradox

scholarly journals Scientific Realism versus Antirealism in Science Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungbae Park
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Moore’S Paradox ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Science Classrooms ◽  
Moore's Paradox ◽  
Scientific Antirealism

Scientific realists believe both what a scientific theory says about observables and unobservables. In contrast, scientific antirealists believe what a scientific theory says about observables, but not about unobservables. I argue that scientific realism is a more useful doctrine than scientific antirealism in science classrooms. If science teachers are antirealists, they are caught in Moore’s paradox when they help their students grasp the content of a scientific theory, and when they explain a phenomenon in terms of a scientific theory. Teachers ask questions to their students to check whether they have grasped the content of a scientific theory. If the students are antirealists, they are also caught in Moore’s paradox when they respond positively to their teachers’ questions, and when they explain a phenomenon in terms of a scientific theory. Finally, neither teachers nor students can understand phenomena in terms of scientific theories, if they are antirealists.

Fallibility’s Payoff

True Enough ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Z. Elgin
Keyword(s):  
Moore’S Paradox ◽  
Moore's Paradox

Fallibilism with respect to knowledge is vulnerable to either a version of Moore’s paradox or to Kripke’s dogmatism paradox. Fallibilism with respect to understanding is not. The recognition of the perennial possibility of error advances understanding by sensitizing thinkers to exactly where and how they might be wrong. Thus the capacity to make mistakes is an epistemic achievement rather than a failing.

Discrepant Affects

2020 ◽  
pp. 176-200
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gilmore
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Actual Experience

This chapter addresses a puzzling feature of one’s engagement with certain kinds of fictions. This is the problem of discrepant affects: one sometimes takes pleasure in fictional events that one would deplore in real life; one aligns oneself with or even admires fictional characters whom one would find despicable if encountered in the actual world; and one forms desires for events to occur in fictions that, in actual experience, one would want to prevent. Highlighting certain dimensions of simulative and empathetic processes, this chapter explains such normatively deviant responses as reflecting an appropriate fiction-motivated breakdown in the quarantine separating how one really values things from how one only imagines doing so.

scholarly journals Companions in Guilt Arguments and Moore's Paradox

Symposion ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-173
Author(s):  
Michael Campbell ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moore’S Paradox ◽  
Moore's Paradox ◽  
Companions In Guilt
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