Technological Practices of Embodiment Reflected in Jeanette Winterson’s Fictional Framing of Posthuman Subjects

Focusing on The PowerBook and The Stone Gods, this article explores the ways in which Jeanette Winterson articulates the interconnections between consciousness and memory, delineates their role in identity formation and reveals how posthuman subjects’ practices of embodiment work to undermine both heteronormative and anthropocentric worldviews. The technologically inscribed bodies of the characters portrayed in these two novels, together with Winterson’s rhizomatic conceptualization of space and her vertical figuration of time, allow for the time-travelling endeavours of e-storyteller Ali/x and of Robo-sapiens-cum-Robo-head Spike. Such fictional entities prompt investigations into the essence of social-material encounters, of subject-object interdependence, of matter-energy vitality, of interaction and intra-action, of reflexive thought and of self-configuration.

A contextualist treatment of negative existentials

In this paper, I want to vindicate the contextualist treatment that is typically applied by artefactualists on fictional entities (ficta) both to general and to singular negative existentials. According to this treatment, the truth value of a negative existential, whether general or singular, changes according to whether the existential quantifier or the first-order existence predicate is contextually used as respectively ranging over and applying to a restricted or an unrestricted domain of beings. In (2003), Walton has criticized this treatment with respect to singular negative existentials in particular. First of all, however, as (Predelli, Stefano. 2002. ‘Holmes’ and Holmes. A Millian analysis of names from fiction. Dialectica 56. 261–279) has shown, this treatment can be applied to singular predications in general, independently of the existential case. Moreover, not only does applying it to singular negative existentials explain why we may contextually use the quantifier restrictedly in general negative existentials, but also it accounts for why comparative negative existentials, both singular and general, may have different truth values as well depending on the comparison group they mobilize.

A pragmatic approach to the ontology of models

What are scientific models? Philosophers of science have been trying to answer this question during the last three decades by putting forward a number of different proposals. Some say that models are best understood as abstract Platonic objects or fictional entities akin to Sherlock Holmes, while others focus on their mathematical nature and see them as set theoretical structures. Although each account has its own strengths in offering various insights on the nature of models, several objections have been raised against these views which still remain unanswered, making the debate on the ontology of models seem unresolvable. The primary aim of this paper is to show that a large part of these difficulties stems from an inappropriate reading of the main question on the ontology of models as a purely metaphysical question. Building on Carnap, it is argued that the question of the ontology of scientific models is either (i) an internal theoretical question within an already accepted linguistic framework or (ii) an external practical question regarding the choice of the most appropriate form of language in order to describe and explain the practice of scientific modelling. The main implication of this view is that the question of the ontology of models becomes a means of probing other related questions regarding the overall practice of scientific modelling, such as questions on the capacity of models to provide knowledge and the relation of models with background theories.

Dynamic types of artistic image: Roman Ingarden’s phenomenology and literary theory

The article is devoted to the question of some data obtained by Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden, and primarily to his study of the literary work of art. Development upon Ingardens ideas is associated with use of Russian authors which are rarely treated in phenomenological aesthetics. The dynamic types of the image structure is that appear as potential states and actualize themselves in the readers reception as problem of imageability of fictional entities. Thus the dynamic character of types of an image structure is a transition from non-thematic background into its actual state and back. To study the visual in fiction, one must understand that the readers encounter with the literary work actualizes potential types, which, according to R. Ingarden, sparkle and go out. The visual nature of the aesthetic object directly depends on which of these potential states are actualized.

Emotions, Actions and Inclinations to Act

Emotional responses to fiction are part of our experience with art and media. Some of these responses (“fictional emotions”) seem to be directed towards fictional entities—entities that we believe do not exist. Some philosophers argue that fictional emotions differ in nature from other emotional responses. (cf. Walton in J Philos 75(1):5–27, 1978, Mimesis as make-believe, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1990, Walton, in: Hjort, Laver (ed.) Emotion and the arts, Oxford University, New York, 1997; Currie in The nature of fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990; Stecker in Br J Aesthet 51(3):295–308, 2011) The claim is supposed to be supported among others by ‘the argument from action.’ In contrast to genuine emotions, proponents of this argument claim, fictional emotions do not motivate their bearers to act. (cf. Yanal in Paradoxes of emotion and fiction, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 1999; Lamarque in Br J Aesthet 21(4):291–304, 1981; Carroll in The philosophy of horror: or, paradoxes of the heart, Routledge, London, 1990; Currie 1990; Walton 1978, 1990; Suits in Pac Philos Q 87(3):369–386, 2006; Friend, in: Kind (ed.) The Routledge handbook of philosophy of imagination, Routledge, New York, 2016) This claim grounds in what may appear to be an obvious fact: that viewers and readers of are not led to act by their fictional emotions. It is certainly true that viewers and readers of fiction do not form intentions to perform actions directed towards fictional entities. In contrast to the proponents of the argument from action, I will argue that the lack of any such intentions can be explained only with reference to intending’s doxastic conditions, conditions that are unsatisfied in the fictional scenario. Decisively, this explanation does not refer to the motivational force of the agent’s emotions; indeed, it doesn’t refer to emotions at all. Thus, the lack of intentions to perform actions directed towards fictional objects provides no support for the claim that fictional emotions are no genuine emotions.

Ulysses May Be a Legal Fiction

This essay looks at what James Joyce’s Ulysses has to say about the nature of fiction. Precisely because Joyce worked very hard to represent Dublin as accurately and meticulously as possible, Ulysses blurs an easy division between fact and fiction. This essay considers how one can discuss fictional entities in ways that make sense. Rather than settle upon a “possible worlds” approach to considering fiction, this essay looks at the advantages and disadvantages of what can be called endorsement: judging the truth of a statement about a fiction is simply a matter of determining whether the fiction endorses that statement. Instead of multiple (even infinite) possible worlds, a work of fiction occasions multiple possible endorsements precisely because any work of fiction is inherently incomplete and thus requires the initiatives of its readers to fill in its manifold gaps.

External Thought and Talk about Fiction

This chapter examines the ontological implications of the various ways in which we can think and talk about fictional entities and examines the roles that external thought and talk about fiction can play in the institution of fiction. It argues that those who deny the existence of fictional entities are unable to accommodate the ways in which we think and talk about fictional entities from an external perspective, and that this gives us good reason to accept fictional entities into our ontology. It argues that external thought and talk about fiction are important to the identification of interpretative fictive content. It also argues that such thought and talk can play an important role in improving the stability of the content-determining rules of fiction institutions, and that they can help participants in fiction institutions to coordinate on rules that provide equilibrium solutions to novel coordination problems of communicating imaginings.

Aims, Scope, and Overview

This chapter introduces the issues to be addressed in the book, and provides some general philosophical background to those issues. These issues include metaphysical questions such as: what distinguishes works of fiction from works of non-fiction; what is the nature of fictive utterances; what determines the contents of works of fiction; what kinds of fictive content are there; how broad in scope is fictive content; and what kinds of things are fictional entities? They also include epistemological questions such as: how do audiences identify the contents of authors’ fictive utterances; how does understanding a work of fiction differ from interpreting it; and what role do thinking and talking about fiction from an external perspective play in enabling communication through fiction? The chapter outlines the distinctively institutional approach that the book will take to address those issues. It provides a summary of the argument to be developed over the course of the book. It identifies the limits to the book’s explanatory ambitions. Finally, it provides summaries of the chapters that follow.

Fictional Entities

This chapter addresses the existence and nature of fictional entities. It identifies two distinct conditions sufficient for the existence of fictional entities, each of which is grounded by a reference-fixing rule of fiction institutions. One of these rules describes conditions sufficient for the existence of fictional entities that are not constituted by anything, while the other describes conditions sufficient for the existence of fictional entities that are constituted by other things. It identifies the metaphysical dependence base for the existence of fictional entities and argues that this does not include anything metaphysically mysterious. It then describes the nature of fictional entities and their identity and individuation conditions. Finally, it compares the account fictional entities provided with that of Amie Thomasson and argues that, despite obvious similarities, there are fundamental differences between the accounts.

Fiction

The aim of this book is to provide a unified solution to a wide range of philosophical problems raised by fiction. While some of these problems have been the focus of extensive philosophical debate, others have received insufficient attention. In particular, the epistemology of fiction has not yet attracted the philosophical scrutiny it warrants. There has been considerable discussion of what determines the contents of works of fiction, but there have been few attempts to explain how audiences identify their contents, or to identify the norms governing the correct understanding and interpretation of works of fiction. This book answers a wide range of both metaphysical and epistemological questions concerning fiction in a way that clarifies the relations between them. The metaphysical questions include: what distinguishes works of fiction from works of non-fiction; what is the nature of fictive utterances; what determines the contents of works of fiction; what kinds of fictive content are there; how broad in scope is fictive content; and what kinds of things are fictional entities? The epistemological questions include: how do audiences identify the contents of authors’ fictive utterances; how does understanding a work of fiction differ from interpreting it; and what role do thinking and talking about fiction from an external perspective play in enabling communication through fiction? This book develops the first single theory that provides answers to all these questions.