Should the Mathematical Fictionalist Be a Moral Fictionalist, Too?

On the face of it, the same motivations that lead some philosophers to adopt mathematical fictionalism seem also to push in the direction of moral fictionalism. In particular, to the extent that mathematical fictionalists are motivated by epistemological concerns about our ability to know truths about abstract mathematical objects, one might expect them to be similarly worried about our ability to know “queer” moral facts. However, the author argues that existing versions of moral fictionalism fare less well than existing versions of mathematical fictionalism in answering two key questions for fictionalists about a domain D, (1) what is it that the D-discourse is being used to do, and (2) why should we expect D-talk to be useful in this way if we do not believe our D-claims to be true? The author closes by presenting considerations that suggest that the combination of mathematical fictionalism with moral realism might be motivated on naturalist grounds.

Fictionalism

The moral error theorist maintains that our ordinary use of moral discourse involves ontological commitments that the world fails to satisfy. What, then, should we do with our broken moral discourse? The revolutionary fictionalist recommends maintaining it but removing the problematic ontological commitment, in a manner modeled on our familiar engagements with fictions. The hermeneutic fictionalist, by contrast, claims that this is already how we use moral discourse. One problem for the revolutionary fictionalist is that there is a multitude of possible moral fictions, so why prefer one to another? One problem for the hermeneutic fictionalist is that it really doesn’t feel as if moral discourse resembles an engagement with fiction. Reflection on the nature of the familiar “mini-fictions” of metaphorical language—whereby we say something false as a way of conveying something true—helps solve both these problems in the moral fictionalist’s favor.

Metaphysics as a Fiction

Realists about metaphysics hold that the aim of the enterprise is to state the truth about the fundamental structure of reality and the principles by means of which reality as a whole is built up from that fundamental structure. Fictionalists hold, by contrast, that metaphysics aims to produce theories (or models) of the fundamental structure that satisfy certain self-imposed constraints: consistency with evolving science, coherence, plausibility by the standards of one or another philosophical subculture, and so on. This chapter distinguishes scientific metaphysics (the sort of metaphysics that rounds out the scientific image by settling theoretical questions unaddressed by scientists) from speculative metaphysics (the sort of metaphysics that tackles questions remote from science) and recommends a version of fictionalism about the latter.

How to Be a Fictionalist About Material Constitution (and Just About Anything Else)

This chapter develops a general strategy for constructing error-theoretic fictionalist (ETF) views of controversial objects (e.g., abstract objects, composite objects, etc.). According to ETF-ist views, (1) ordinary sentences about objects of the relevant controversial kind are not literally true (despite the fact that they seem true to us) because objects of the relevant kind don’t really exist; but (2) these sentences are still “correct” in a certain objective sense; and (3) we can use the “correctness” of these sentences to explain why they seem so obvious to us, why they’re so useful to us in science and everyday life, and why it’s not harmful to our purposes that these sentences aren’t literally true. Second, having laid out the general recipe for constructing ETF-ist views, the author goes on to develop and motivate an ETF-ist view of our discourse about coincident objects and material constitution.

Fictionalism as a Phase (to Be Grown Out of)

In this chapter, it will be argued that a fictionalist account, in one central sense of that ambiguous phrase, of an area of discourse is not something that can be called correct or incorrect once and for all. Rather, areas of discourse often evolve from phases for which an error theory is most appropriate to phases for which a fictionalist account is appropriate. They can then evolve further into phases for which a straightforward account is appropriate. The latter can occur when the meaning of a key term changes. The phenomenon will be illustrated by examples from several areas of discourse.

Fictionalism and Reasons

Revolutionary forms of fictionalism reach conclusions that seem immodest by the relatively modest means of weighing up one set of reasons against another. This project faces several objections. Is there any attitude other than belief which we can take to the theories we use? Does the fictionalist require an untenable distinction between ordinary and philosophical contexts? Does fictionalism assume an invidious distinction between worlds possessing and not possessing a rejected posit? Is fictionalism unable to explain the success of false theories that are given the fictionalist treatment or the place in such theories of theoretical claims that play no useful role? This chapter seeks to address all of these objections.

Religious Fictionalism and Pascal’s Wager

This chapter is a re-examination of Pascal’s famous pragmatic argument (Pascal’s Wager) in support of wagering for God, first introduced in Pensées, Part III, §233. It is, in part, a consideration of whether Pascal is best interpreted as advocating a version of fictionalism about the Christian religion. Although it is ultimately concluded that Pascal should not be interpreted this way, his views are remarkably close to the religious fictionalist’s, and, in a sense, his views may be thought of as a precursor to religious fictionalism. In addition, this chapter is also a consideration of how a contemporary fictionalist might adapt Pascal’s argument. Although the new “factionalist” wager suffers from many of the same problems as Pascal’s original wager, it is not vulnerable to them all. In particular, fictionalists can dodge a thorny problem first raised by Antony Duff in 1986.

Of Rabbits and Men

According to the fiction view of models, scientific models are akin to places and characters in literary fiction. The chapter introduces this view and develops a specific version of the view based on the pretense account of fiction. It then turns to the question of how models represent their targets and formulates an account of representation based on the notions of denotation, exemplification, keying up, and imputation. The notion of denotation, it is argued, is usually borrowed from language and so an account of scientific representation can pursue a reductive strategy as regards denotation. Finally, it is pointed out that the fiction view of models in no way implies that models promulgate falsities and that the fiction therefore does not undermine the authority of science.

Folk Stories

Close attention to the nature of fiction reveals a number of issues which bear on mental fictionalism, here understood as a view that proposes a fictionalist treatment of folk psychology. After sketching a few such issues, the chapter unearths difficulties for a figurative fictionalist approach, concentrating on Adam Toon’s recent attempt to understand folk psychology in terms of Kendall Walton’s notion of prop-oriented make-believe and its relationship to metaphor. But while attention to the nature of fiction creates obstacles for those sympathetic to mental fictionalism, it also suggests opportunities. Utilizing a distinction between being true in a fiction and being true to a story, the chapter sketches the beginnings of a brand of mental “storyism” that departs from mental fictionalism but may do justice to some fictionalist ambitions. Finally, it is suggested that attention to the nature of fiction offers a potential new solution to the so-called “fictionalist suicide” problem.

Introduction

This volume aims to provide an indication of how the discussion of fictionalism has advanced over the past ten to fifteen years, in particular since the publication in 2005 of Mark Kalderon’s Fictionalism in Metaphysics. But the rise of fictionalism as a trend in metaontology raises a fundamental concern: Is fictionalism more than just a loose collection of ideas? How precisely should philosophers understand fictionalism? This introduction prepares readers for diving into the remainder of the volume by first confronting the question of how best to understand the idea of fictionalism and then providing brief summaries of the chapters.