42.2.Livingston - Philosophical Perspectives on Fictional Characters

7/28/2019 42.2.Livingston - Philosophical Perspectives on Fictional Characters

1/25

Philosophical Perspectives on Fictional Characters

Paisley Livingston

Andrea Sauchelli

New Literary History, Volume 42, Number 2, Spring 2011, pp. 337-360(Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/nlh.2011.0016

For additional information about this article

Access Provided by University of Pittsburgh at 02/02/13 6:55PM GMT

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nlh/summary/v042/42.2.livingston.html
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nlh/summary/v042/42.2.livingston.htmlhttp://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nlh/summary/v042/42.2.livingston.html


2/25

New Literary History, 2011, 42: 337360

Philosophical Perspectives onFictional Characters

Paisley Livingston and Andrea Sauchelli

In what Fred Crews calls duty ree interdisciplinarity, scholarsborrow an idea rom another feld and slip it across the borderinto their home discipline, where it is misrepresented as the state

o the art in the source feld.1 We aim to avoid this kind o error in theollowing selective survey o philosophical perspectives on fction andfctional characters. Although we cannot oer a comprehensive historicaloverview, we describe a number o dierent positions that have beencentral to contemporary philosophical debates. We pass over variousapproaches and topics that have fgured prominently in literary theory,and instead emphasize work that is less likely to be amiliar to literary

scholars. Our ocus here is on what can be called the more undamentalissues, that is, questions about the very nature o fctional charactersand the basis o our knowledge o them. We take it that these issuesare logically distinct rom, but o direct relevance to, a number o otherascinating topics, including questions about the eelings or emotionsthat are and are not appropriate to a readers experience o personsrepresented in a work o fction, or the question o whether and howgenuine knowledge is to be had rom the experience o characters andtheir doings in fctions.

We do not pretend to be neutral about the positions surveyed in whatollows, and shall rerain rom misrepresenting our opinions as the objecto a philosophical consensus. It is our hope that literary scholars mayfnd some o these ideas insightul and useul, and indeed, we aim toestablish that the philosophers whose works we discuss have presenteda number o arguments and positions that are directly relevant to de-bates in literary studies. We hasten to add, however, that this is not asituation where an authoritative theory can be imported rom one feldinto another. Instead, it should be acknowledged that topics surround-

ing fctional characters have proved to be an important challenge toa number o sophisticated theories in metaphysics and the philosophyo language and mind.


3/25

new literary history338

Here is a brie outline o the paper. We begin by setting orth a basicand central question about fctional characters and survey some o themain ways o trying to answer this question. We start with the broadamily o realist approaches and discuss some o its members. Thepremise shared by such approaches is that, at least in some cases, claimsabout fctional characters reer to something real and can be right or

wrong. Having discussed realist approaches we then turn to irrealistapproaches. The basic orientation o all such approaches is providedby the thought that fctional characters are in some sense a fgment othe human imagination. This amily o views has its attractions, but acesproblems as well. Those who think the problems outweigh the advantages

have sought to fnd a way out o the realist/irrealist dilemma, and oneamily o views, based on work by Alexius Meinong, is discussed. Weturn, fnally, to issues related to the distinction between characters andother aspects o the content o fctions, including the relation betweena literary concept o character and positions on personality theory inpsychology. In a brie conclusion we sketch our preerred stance on theissues and positions canvassed in the paper.

A Challenge to PhilosophyConsider the ollowing passage, which can be located in chapter 49

o any good edition o William Makepeace Thackerays Vanity Fair: ANovel Without a Hero:

I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord Steyne or to you, saidRebecca, sincerely grateul, and seating hersel at the piano, began to sing.

She sang religious songs o Mozart, which had been early avourites o Lady

Steyne, and with such sweetness and tenderness that the lady lingering round thepiano, sate down by its side, and listened until the tears rolled down her eyes.2

With regard to this passage, it seems right to say that it is true in thefction that Lady Steyne is moved by Rebeccas talented perormanceo some o the Ladys avorite songs by Mozart. Yet what makes this thecase? The philosophical challenge is to provide a principled accountthat can adequately explain, not only cases like this simple paraphrase,but the surprising variety o utterances about fction, which includes

detailed interpretations o a works content, comparisons between di-erent fctions (or example, Rebecca Sharp is more evil than BarryLyndon), existential statements (There is no real Rebecca Sharp),critical or metafctional claims (Rebecca Sharp is a character in Vanity

Fair), and generalizations about the nature o fctional characters (All


4/25

339philosophical perspectives on fctional characters

fctional characters are abstract objects). As we show in more detail inwhat ollows, these sample statements represent the striking variety othe discourse about fctional characters, and it turns out that an accountor theory that can seem perectly suited to dealing with one o thesetypes o statements may not work well at all in an attempt to explicatesome o the other kinds.

This most basic philosophical challenge concerning fctional char-acters can be couched as a question regarding the truth conditions othe various kinds o statements about fctions. In other words, what, ianything, could make a given statement about a fctional character rightor wrong? A brie clarifcation o how that question may be articulated

more ully is in order. Truth, we take it, is best characterized as relational.One way to put this is to say, using David Armstrongs inuential idiom,that truth requires not only a truth-bearer, or something that has theproperty o being true, but also a truth-maker.3 What motivates this ap-proach to the question o truth is the insight that the word truth doesnot in general reer to some kind o simple and independent entity orsubstance (as in Truth with a capital t). Instead, it is more plausibleto think o truth as a eature that something like a belie or a statementcan have or ail to have. Plausible truth-bearers, then, include statements,

belies, propositions, and thoughts. Yet in the case o empirical beliesor statements, a truth-bearer is true or alse, not independently, but onlyin relation to what it is about. For example, the bare act that someonebelieves himsel healthy does not make this belie true or alse. Thebelie is about a physical condition that either does or does not obtain.Or i someone asserts that Rebecca Sharp in Vanity Fair is a Martianin disguise, the act that such an assertion has been made does not initsel make it correct. Truth, then, is understood as a relation betweena truth-bearer and a truth-maker (or more traditionally, as a correlation

between a proposition and a act).With these assumptions in mind, consider the statement, Mozartwrote some religious songs. Here the truth-maker could be the evento Mozarts writing songs such as O Gottes Lamm, since it is the actualoccurrence o such an event that makes the statement true. Yet what isthe truth-maker in the case o the above-cited sentence to the eect thatLady Steyne was moved by Rebecca Sharps perormance o songs byMozart? I neither Rebecca Sharp nor Lady Steyne ever existed, it wouldseem that there are no truth-makers or this sentence. Is it not simply

alse, then, to say that Rebecca Sharps perormance moved Lady Steyneto tears? Yet such a conclusion is hardly appealing, at least or those ous who are strongly inclined to think that some statements about whathappens in the fction are true, while others are not.4 What, i anything,makes them true or alse?


5/25


The problem is ramed even more sharply or the many contemporaryphilosophers who have espoused a general, reerentialist theory o themeaning o names, according to which the semantic contribution o aname is nothing other than its reerent (or example, the name Mozartreers to Mozart, and its contribution to the meaning o the sentenceMozart wrote religious songs is just Mozart, the real person).5 It couldseem to ollow rom this account that sentences containing fctional orempty names are not meaningul (and alse), but devoid o meaning.

Yet such an unsettling conclusion is hard to square with the act thatpeople use such sentences in meaningul conversations about the workso fction they have experienced, and would appear to be able to agree

and disagree over the fctional characterizations in them (or example,as when they readily concur that Mira Nairs character named RebeccaSharp is quite dierent rom the character in Thackeray who bears thelexically identical name).

The philosophical challenge, then, is to say how statements aboutfction can be meaningul and, in some cases, true. This is o coursenot the only important philosophical question that arises with regard tofctional characters, but it is the central one in much o the contemporaryphilosophical literature on the topic, and as was announced above, in

what ollows our primary concern will be to survey some o the mainresponses to this challenge.

Fictional Characters as Abstract Objects or Artiacts

Realists about fctional characters hold that fctional characters actu-ally exist in a mind-independent manner and have determinate prop-erties that can make certain statements about them true or alse. So

the truth-makers or statements and belies about fctional characterswould be actual beings o some sort. Yet this line o thought is not verypromising i it is interpreted as the idea that every work o fction is a

ction clefreerring to specifc, real-world persons. There is no goodreason to think that Thackeray had any one, actual person in mind in

writing about Rebecca Sharp, or that readers o his novel are supposedto be thinking about and reerring to that person. The statement, Re-becca Sharp is just a fctional character and never really existed seemsuncontroversially correct. How, then, could any realist approach be

squared with this act?One option, which has appealed to some literary theorists, is to hold

that fctional characters are the denizens o possible worlds, while alsoholding that possible worlds exist.6 Very briey, philosophizing about


6/25


possible worlds fnds its point o departure in the act that we tend totalk and think, not only about what (we think) is actually the case, butalso about what could or could not happen. For example, I you donot pass the exam, you will ail the course expresses a train o thoughtamiliar to all teachers. So what are we talking about when we use coun-teractual utterances and reer to nonactual states o aairs? Possible

worlds is one way o trying to reply to that question. Some philosophers,including David K. Lewis, have argued or the concrete reality o allpossible worlds. What is merely possible rom the standpoint o ouractual world could be, or perhaps even is, actual at some other world.

And i there are such possible worlds, maybe what a fction describes is

a world o this sort, including its denizens. The tempting thought, then,is that what makes some statements about fctions true is the possibleworld this fction is about. There are, however, some basic objectionsto this entire approach, and we shall briey evoke some o them in thenext paragraph.

It must be acknowledged, frst o all, that as a given work o fctionreers at best to a seto possible worlds, there is no simple one-to-onemapping o fctional characters onto an individual person existing inpossible worlds.7 Why would that be so? A world is complete in the ol-

lowing sense: or any thought or proposition, it is either the case thatthis proposition is true in that world or that it is alse. A world is in thisrespect determinate, which is not to say that anybody can know every-thing about it. In contrast to this basic assumption about worlds, thedomain or states o aairs evoked or represented by a work o fction isnot complete in this sense. As Roman Ingarden amously argued, thereare spots o indeterminacy even or the most attentive reader whokeeps everything in the text vividly in mind.8 For example, there is the

world where Becky sang nsongs by Mozart, the world where she sang

n+1 songs, the world where she wore npieces o jewelry when she sangMozart songs, the world where she wore n+1 pieces o jewelry on thatoccasion, and so on. It ollows that i we think o fctions as reerring topossible worlds, Rebecca Sharp is not just one possible person inhabitingone possible world, buta seto possible persons in an infnity o possible

worlds. Statements about the Thackeray character by that name wouldbe true, then, o all o the persons living in all o the possible worlds

where the name picks out someone corresponding to the typeo personrepresented by the descriptions o her in Thackerays work. For many

philosophers, this is enough to show that this entire approach does notreally provide an adequate elucidation o our ways o thinking about afctional character, since we are oten inclined to think o a characteras oneperson or agent, and not a set o persons or agents. Sets, it may


7/25


be helpul to recall, are not concrete entities, but abstract objects. Theproperty o being abstract, which is contrasted to the property o beingconcrete, is usually understood as the property o not being spatiotem-porally located, though there are other ways o drawing the distinction.9

At this point the most salient realist option is simply to accept thisconsequence. Fictional characters are thereby accepted into onesontology as a proper subset o the general category o abstract objectsor types.10 The realist may have independent grounds or holding thatabstract objects exist.11 Yet there is a major problem to be aced here.Traditionally, abstract objects have been thought o as eternal and notinuenced by any interaction with concrete agents. According to this

Platonist understanding o abstract objects, they can be discovered butnot created by creatures located in space and time. However, this basicpremise about the status o abstract entities or abstractaruns contrary toa deeply entrenched intuition about fctional characters, namely, thatthey are created in a specifc context by a specifc author (or group ocollaborating authors). Although realism about abstract objects mayhave the virtue o justiying certain kinds o statements about fctionalcharacters, it can be hard to accept the implication that Rebecca Sharpexists eternally and would have done so had the human species never

evolved on the planet Earth.12

Is there no other option or some kind o realist approach to fctionalcharacters? Amie Thomasson is a contemporary philosopher who hasargued that the traditional philosophical manner o sorting entities asabstract or concrete is not particularly enlightening. She proposes a di-erent system o categories, and thus a dierent metaphysical picture,based in part on the idea o ontological dependence, where, roughlyspeaking, one item is ontologically dependent on another item just incase the nonexistence o the ormer implies the nonexistence o the

latter.13 According to Thomasson, fctional characters such as RebeccaSharp and Gregor Samsa should be classifed as humanly created abstractartiacts.14 They are thereby recognized as sharing a common eature

with other entities that are amiliar parts o our sociocultural reality,such as nations, marriages, and laws: their very coming into existencedepends on intentional acts o (allegedly) rational agents. They have all,so to speak, been manuactured by the creative intentions o rationalbeings, and that is why they are called artiacts.

According to Thomasson, the identity conditions o a fctional char-

acter, that is, the conditions that determine when a particular charactercomes into existence, are specifed by the practices o the actual literary

world in which use is made o the empty name that supposedly reersto a fctional character. For example, the sentence Jose K. exists is


8/25


true in case the name Jose K. is used with the intention to reer to afctional character, and that intention is successully expressed throughsome means that is recognizable as a part o an established literary prac-tice. This condition is satisfed whenever the intentions o the author(or authors) o a work are in line with the belies and practices o those

who deal competently with literary works. In short, what it takes to be afctional character is determined by the practices o literary critics andauthors. Given that the agent using a fctional name in creating a worko literature is ipso acto an author, he or she can be regarded as oneo those individuals who regulate the existence conditions o fctionalcharacters. Thomasson dubs this the easy approach to ontology. As

long as the conditions o applicability o a proper name are satisfed,the name reers and the reerent thus exists.One aspect o Thomassons sophisticated and well-developed theory

is the thesis that fctional characters are rigidly historically dependenton the intentional acts o their creator(s). This means that in order tocome into existence, a fctional character requires a specifc act o cre-ation. In other words, being created at a specifc moment by a specifcauthor is an essential eature o the character.15 A fctional character isalso constantly and genericallydependent on the existence o the literary

work and o a community able to process inormation about it. Theseconditions provide criteria or establishing when a character ceases toexist: Lord Jim is a contingent being like us. Should all o the instanceso the text o Joseph Conrads novel be destroyed and should there nolonger be any agents capable o remembering or understanding thetext, Lord Jim would no longer exist.

Thomassons proposals are well worked out and careully argued. Theyrepresent, in our view at least, a signifcant advance in relation to the ideathat one can simply pull a world or a set o worlds out o a given work

o fction, and in so doing, come up with a cast o fctional characters.Yet there are some objections that can be raised to Thomassons views,and we will briey set orth two kinds o objections in what ollows.

One kind o objection to this proposal targets the postulated link be-tween metaphysical theses (in the sense o basic claims about the natureand ontological status o various entities) and the world o literarypractices. Thomasson allows that with regard to many questions aboutthe individuation o characters, literary practice is vague and indecisive,but her contention is that with regard to many other questions, literary

practice is stable and coherent.16 Our objection to this approach can becouched in both a bold and more cautious orm. The bold version deniesthat the literary practices to which the philosopher deers in act ormsuch a system. As is to be expected in a domain where experimentation


9/25


and innovation are endemic, there is no stable consensus amongst the(competent) practitioners, whose heterogeneous activities and attitudesinvolve dierent and even contradictory standards.17 In a more cautious

version, the objection runs as ollows: while it could be the case thatthere is a subtending and stable system o competent practices consti-tutive o meaning and reerence in literary fctions, the onus is on thephilosopher to establish that this is indeed the case, and to explain whythis should be so. Thomasson has not in act shouldered this burden.This does not entail, however, that it cannot be done, and indeed, itis only an extreme species o skepticism that denies that many o thestatements made about literary characters have cogent and justifable

answers. Yet even i there is demonstrable convergence on certain typeso claims amongst reasonable, well-inormed readers, the question owhat makes this convergence competent, reasonable, and justifable re-mains. More succinctly, the objection challenges the apparent assumptionthat a subset o the critical discourse about literature is sel-groundingor in some obvious way warranted, and thus capable o providing anuncontroversial ground or metaphysical contentions about the natureand modes o existence o some category o entities.

A second objection to Thomassons view targets the act that on her

account, a character is an abstractartiact. The complaint is that abstractartiact theories cannot always provide a straightorward account o ourstatements about fction. Even though we may be inclined to acceptsome arguments to the eect that our talk aboutfctional characters mayinvolve reerence to (or quantifcation over) abstracta, this does not implythat all our thoughts and statements involving fctional characters canbe analyzed straightorwardly in this way. In particular, an attributiono a property to a fctional individual cannot always be analyzed as astraightorward attribution o a property to an abstract object. Such an

analysis yields silly metaphysical mistakes. For example, in a translationo Albert Camuss Ltrangerwe fnd the ollowing sentences: His nameis Raymond Sints. Hes a little on the short side, with broad shouldersand a nose like a boxers.18 What can be ruled out is that Camus and hisreaders are in the business o attributing the property o having broadshoulders to an abstract object, as abstract objects do not have shoulders(or bones, or blood, and, in general, are not composed o cells). It ollowsthat claims within the context o a fction cannot always be analyzed asstraightorward attributions o a property to an abstract object.

Thomasson has proposed at least one way o dealing with this issue.19Namely, she would have us introduce a fctional operator (such as inthe fction . . .) to disambiguate the attribution o properties to theabstract object when it is taken as representing a fctional character in-


10/25


side the context o the novel. This would help to mark o the specifcpart o our fctional discourse that requires abstract artiacts, such asmetafctive ascriptions made by literary critics, or statements in whichreaders implicitly quantiy over characters in their debates. This strikesus as an intuitively appealing move, but it is worth pointing out that it isnot entirely unproblematic and raises a number o interesting questions.It is, moreover, a move characteristic o a rather dierent approach tofction, namely, the prefx strategy, which is a topic to which we returnin our next section.

Irrealism, Pretense, and PresuppositionThe term irrealist can be used to single out a amily o positions

that converge on the thought that it is a mistake to postulate certainkinds o entities as the truth-makers or fctional discourse. There areseveral logically distinct reasons why one might be inclined to distrustsuch postulations. One is that there are strong, independent doubtsabout the existence o these sorts o entities (such as nominalist worriesabout abstract objects, or roughly, the idea that while there are particular

thoughts and drawings o triangles, there is no independently existingabstract object to be reerred to as triangle). Another kind o worryis that reerence to these entities cannot really sufce to sort out our

various statements about fction, starting with Sherlock Holmes doesnot exist, and moving on to Arthur Conan Doyle had Holmes die inThe Final Problem but brought the character back to lie years laterin The Adventure o the Empty House.

One broad amily o irrealist views is known as pretense theory. Aninuential example is Kendall L. Waltons proposal that metaphysically

dubious statements about fctional characters can be replaced by un-objectionable claims about imagining or pretense. Waltons basic ideais that works in the representational arts are to be understood in termso props or games o make-believe. Childrens imaginative use o toysand objects in their games o make-believe are taken as the model orunderstanding the proper relation between works o fction and those

who engage with them. The unction o the text o a novel, or example,is to regulate and direct the imaginative games o the audience. Suchprops in games o make-believe generate fctional truths and authorize

or prescribe certain imaginings. A fctional truth is something true insuch a game, where what this really means is that some kind o norm orprescription warrants that such-and-such is to be imagined in that game.

As Walton puts it, A proposition is fctional i it is to be imagined, i astory or other work o fction prescribes imagining it.20


11/25


While Walton claims that a philosophical analysis o the specifcityo propositional imagining would be desirable, he concedes that suchan analysis is out o reach. Very roughly, the core intuition is that toimagine some object or state o aairs is to engage in a kind o nonas-sertive entertaining or considering based upon some prop, where suchan attitude does not entail holding that thought to be true.21 There is, ocourse, much more to be said about the nature o imagining and how itis in various ways dierent rom, yet related to, such mental operationsas believing, conjecturing, and so on, but we will ollow Walton in whatollows in working with a airly sketchy idea o imagining as nonassertiveconsidering or entertaining in thought.

With regard to the philosophical puzzle concerning the truth condi-tions o earnest statements reerring to fctional characters, Walton holdsthat no such entity as Sherlock Holmes is required or statements aboutthe character in The Final Solution to be true. The use o the nameSherlock Holmes is to be understood as taking place inside pretense:the implicit writer or speaker o the sentences in the novel is pretendingto reer to an entity and thus is not committed to its actual existence.

Waltons general scheme or dealing with fctional characters is that anassertion concerning fctional entities is true in case it is fctional, in

the relevant authorized game o make-believe, that the agent makingthat assertion speaks truly. An apparent assertion about a fctional entityshould be understood, then, as a move in a game o make-believe in

which we pretend to give a true description o the world.Waltons inuential proposal rightly underscores the role o the imagi-

nation in the making and appreciation o works o fction. I there areany signifcant theses that orm the object o a strong consensus in thisarea o philosophy, one o them is that the attitude o imagining is es-sential to the dierence between works o fction and other categories o

works and utterances.22 It does not automatically ollow rom this point,however, that a pretense account can deal with claims about fctionalcharacters that are made outside the pretense, such as Sherlock Hol-mes is a fctional character. This is a statement that many o us wouldacknowledge as being straightorwardly true, and not true on the condi-tion that we engage in some complicated rewording. Waltons proposal,or example, is to say, with regard to such statements, that in makingthem we acknowledge, while betraying the pretense, only that there isa work in whose authorized games so pretending is fctionally to reer

successully.23 The relevant objection to this complicated rewording, asvoiced by Peter Lamarque, is that Waltons theory extends pretence toowidely because it implies the presence o games o make-believe in caseswhere a literal interpretation seems more intuitive.24 More bluntly put,we dontpretendthat Conan Doyle invented a character named Sherlock


12/25


Holmes, we rightlybelievethat he did so, and the reason why such beliesare true is that he really did create the character: the truth-maker is theevents involved in Doyles creative activity.

Is it really true that Waltons sophisticated approach cannot success-ully account or the truth conditions o straightorward and uncontro-

versial metafctional statements? To get a better sense o the problem,note that i we mechanically apply the prefx strategy (appending theit is fctional that . . . clause beore the relevant statements about thefctional characters), what we have previously identifed as an intuitivelytrue metafctional statement becomes: It is fctional in Conan DoylesThe Final Solution that Sherlock Holmes is a fctional character.

This statement, however, reports an inerence that the reader is in actnotprescribed to draw within the pretense. What the fctioneer invitesus to imagine is that Holmes is a remarkably clever human being, nota fctional character. There are, o course, sel-reexive fctions thatinvite us to think o a fctional character as a fctional character, but anadequate theory must handle fctions where this is not the case as wellas those where it is.25

It should be apparent at this point in the discussion that each o theapproaches surveyed so ar is appealing in that it gets part o the story

right, but that each o them runs into trouble when aced with otheraspects o discourse about fctional characters. Is there no way to providea more comprehensive account?

One such approach to the logic and semantics o fctional charactersis Mark Sainsburys recent pluralistic proposal. As Sainsburys views onthe matter are quite complex, we can only oer a brie and simplifedsketch. Sainsbury argues that the supposed benefts o including exoticentities such as unreal persons within our ontology can be had withoutsacrifcing a more sober and deensible ontology. He acknowledges that

discourse about fction is varied, and proposes that dierent strategiesshould be employed to deal with the dierent kinds o claims madeabout fction. A cornerstone o Sainsburys strategy is a theory aboutfctional names called Reerence without Reerents.26 The basic ideais that empty names can make a semantic contribution to the proposi-tions o which they are a part, despite the act that they lack a reerent.Unlike those who deend a standard reerentialist account, Sainsburyclaims that in general we associate reerring expressions with certain re-erence conditions, rather than with the reerent o the expression itsel.

For example, in the case o the name Obama, we have the ollowingconditions: or all x (Obama reers to x i and only i x = Obama).27

How does such an analysis help us with a simple sentence such asJose K. is a bank clerk? Sainsbury identifes various options. Thefrst option is to paraphrase the sentence in some way that makes it


13/25


turn out true and not problematic, that is, not committing us to theexistence o exotic entities. The general idea behind this strategy is toclaim that a problematic sentence is true but, despite its apparent on-tological commitment, its truth conditions are equivalent to those o anonproblematic sentence. For example, we can say that a sentence suchas Jose K. is a bank clerk is true and that, despite its apparent com-mitment to an exotic entity (Jose K.), this sentence can be paraphrasedinto another one, the truth conditions o which are not ontologicallycommitting. The rationale behind this move is usually that the second(and unproblematic) sentence reveals the real hidden logical orm othe previous one. For example, it is argued that the sentence Jose K.

is a bank clerk includes, at a logical level, a noncommitting fctionaloperator: According to the fction, Jose K. is a bank clerk. The twosentences are equivalent because the latter is taken to reveal the reallogical orm o the ormer.

A second option is to deny that this sentence is true, while addingthat, although the sentence is literally alse because there is no actual

Jose K., we can still account or the idea that in some circumstancesthe sentence can be taken as true. The trick is to have recourse to thenotion o presupposition. For example, we can say that when we take

the sentence to be true, we should be understood as presupposingthatthe sentence is prefxed by an operator such as according to FranzKakas The Trial. Or perhaps the presupposition is that Jose K. is areal person. Having recourse to the presupposition strategy allows usto remain neutral about the equivalence in truth conditions betweenthe two sentences. Sainsbury notes that in conversational contexts ourpresuppositions do not always match what we actually believe. In thecontext o literary criticism, critics who discuss Jose K. can accept orpresuppose that Jose K. is a real person, without, however, believing

this to be true. They can do so or any number o reasons, such as at-tempting to arrive at a better understanding o the characters possibleemotional states.28 Another strategy or dealing with claims about fctionis to treat them not as truth-evaluable; in the place o truth values ortruth conditions, we adopt the notion o aithul-to-the-story. Jose K. isa bank clerk would turn out to be aithul to the story, but not literallytrue. What is and is not aithul to the story associated with a given worko fction is, o course, a matter o great controversy, one that returnsus, once more, to the basic problem o how the content o a fction is

determined.29 While there are certain advantages in adopting Sainsburyspluralistic approach, simplicity is not one o them.

To sum this last section up, the irrealist approach captures important,well-entrenched ideas about the nature o fction and fctional characters.


14/25


Yet this kind o approach would appear to run aground on the historicaland cultural reality o created works and characters. This was the strengtho the abstract artiact theory that recognizes such items as irreduciblyreal entities. Yet as we saw above, that very approach must at a certainpoint have recourse to the prefx strategy and to some idea o a specialattitude, such as pretense or imagining, that governs certain statementsabout fctional characters. Sainsburys pluralistic approach has the virtueo inviting us to shit perspectives along with contexts so as to adopt vi-able ways o talking about the contrasting aspects o fctions, yet we arelet with the question o how these dierent perspectives and contextsft together, as well as the deeper problem o oering something like

a principled account o how the very content o a fction, or in otherwords, what happens in the story, is determined at all. With his evoca-tion o authorized games o make-believe, Walton implies that there isindeed a solution to that problem, but he in act provides no principledaccount o how the distinction between authorized and unauthorizedpretense is to be drawn and applied. The search or a comprehensiveaccount continues.

Fictional Characters as Nonexistent ObjectsNot all philosophers have been convinced that the options are ex-

hausted by a choice between believing and disbelieving in fctionalentities, or between postulating or denying their existence. An earlyarticulation o an alternative was Alexius Meinongs contention thatfctional characters fgure amongst those items in the universe that lackthe property o existence, but have a sort o being labelled Gegebenheitor givenness (and not merely a givenness in thought or experience).30

According to this theory, when we say that Rebecca Sharp does not ex-ist, we are right, but we can coherently add, without the dodges oparaphrase, prefx, or presupposition, that she has musical talent andmanages to bring Lady Steyne to tears.

Meinongian theories o fctional entities, broadly conceived, includea set o principles describing the nature o nonexistent objects.31 Purelyfctional characters are taken to be a subset o the set o nonexistentobjects. The main claim o Meinongians is that there areobjects that donot exist. I this ormulation sounds contradictory (as the use o italics in

the last phrase was meant to suggest), it can be reormulated as someobjects do not exist. Meinong is ollowed in this regard by TerenceParsons and Graham Priest, who argue that there is a viable distinctionbetween being and existence, and that it is not explicitly contradictory,


15/25


even though it may sound paradoxical, to afrm that some o the objectsover which we quantiy (by means o expressions o the orm or all,there is, and so on) do not have the property o existing.

The crucial thesis o Meinongian theories is that an object does nothave to exist in order to instantiate a property. This is a denial o whathas oten been presented as a knock-down objection to the entire ap-proach, namely, the thesis that existence is a necessary condition onhaving properties.32 Finally, any theory o fctional entities that is to bebased on the idea o nonexistent objects must hold that the latter canplay the theoretical role that the ormer are supposed to play. Supportor this thesis is needed because even i the idea o nonexistent objects

can be deended successully, it does not straightorwardly ollow romthat idea that a subset o these nonexistent entities can be identifedwith the set o fctional characters.

Meinongians motivate their approach by claiming that nonexistentobjects are necessary to the general explanation o various linguistic andmental data. More specifcally, Meinongian metaphysics is said to havethe advantage o providing an account o intentionality and intensional-ity.33 To begin with the latter, in one kind o statement about fctionalcharacters, intensional verbs are used to postulate a real relation between

an actual agent and a fctional character. An example is Ren Girardthinks Meursault is sel-deceived. According to Meinongians, nonex-istent entities are crucial in accounts o such uses o intensional verbsinvolving fctional characters, the thought being: no relation withoutrelata. But how does the Meinongian metaphysics help account or thetruth conditions o statements belonging to this category? According toPriest, we can give an account o the truth o this statement by sayingthat Girard thinks Meursault is sel-deceived just in case Meursault, anonexistent object, is in those worlds that describe the sphere o what

Girard has belies about. The key idea here is that nonexistent entitiescan be the reerent o empty names and that as a result they can providean explanation o the meaningulness and truth-value o expressionscontaining this kind o names.

Turning now to intentionality, we begin with the thought that inten-tionality is, as Franz Brentano proposed, the mark o the mental, orat least something essential to our mental states.34 According to manyphilosophers, it is relatively uncontroversial to observe that people re-quently think about things that cannot properly be described as being

part o the actual world (such as what Lord Byron and Percy ByssheShelley would have done had they lived to a ripe old age), and theproposed theoretical justifcation or believing in nonexistent objectsis that we can describe intentional mental states o this imaginative


16/25


sort as being directed towards nonexistent objects. More bluntly put,the Meinongian contention is that nonexistent objects play the role ofctional intentional objects that do not belong to our world: when wethink about Rebecca Sharp, we have to be thinking about something,and that something is a nonexistent person.

A question that comes to mind here is this: do Meinongians reallyex-plainthe object-directedness o intentionality, or do they merely recruit apervasive assumption about this eature o our experience to ontologicalends? Perhaps the Meinongians have inverted the order o explanation:

what explains the illusory being o nonexistent objects is human inten-tionality, which allows us to engage in thoughts and imaginings about

what does not exist. Perhaps a genuine explanation o this capacity isbeyond the scope o philosophical analysis; in any case, the accountoated by Meinongians is hardly an explanation in any robust sense.

As could easily be expected, many philosophers have been quite per-plexed by the idea that there are things that do not exist. It is regularlycomplained that the distinction between being and existence is notperspicuous, and that existence is not straightorwardly interpreted asa property on a par with being red or being a bank clerk. Setting theseand other metaphysical and logical objections aside, or the purpose o

our discussion it is enough to show that there are problems with theidentifcation o a subset o nonexistent objects as the set o items thatplay the role o fctional characters. One importantdesideratumor anytheory o fctional characters, we take it, is a convincing account o theidea that a fctional characters bears a special relation to the author(s)o the work in which that character fgures.35 It seems reasonable tosuppose, or example, that beore Fyodor Dostoyevsky thought and

wrote about Raskolnikov, there was no object to which the name Ras-kolnikov reerred.

However, Meinongian theories o objects imply that there is an infnitenumber o such objects even beore any creative act was undertaken byany author. Fictional characters, being a species o nonexistent objects,are thus an arrangement o properties having a prior being (nonexis-tence); they are, then, arrangements that some author can select or pickout, but not create. What is problematic about Meinongian doctrinesis that the internal structure o a fctional character remains the same

whatever the author does, his or her only role being to attribute to theselected character the extranuclear property o being fctional or to ap-

pear in this or that novel. This is a very big problem or the doctrine i wetake seriously the idea that the creators o fctional works are genuinelycreative. While it would be a mistake to take this latter intuition to en-tail that authors bring real persons into existence ex nihilo, the account


17/25


provided by Meinongians is nonetheless highly counterintuitive on thispoint, at least or those who hold that authors do more than select acharacter and make it fctional.36

Content and Character

The general arguments about the metaphysics and semantics o fctionthat we have passed in review leave various more specifc questions inthe background, and it is to some o these that we turn in this section.One such question is whether there is a distinction to be drawn between

fctional entities in general, such as all inanimate objects and settings,and fctional characters more specifcally. A house can, o course, in asupernatural story be represented as having thoughts, eelings, and de-sires, and so unction as a character in that fctional work. Yet in manycontexts, it makes good critical sense to distinguish between a novelistsdescription o a house and his or her descriptions o characters. Realistsabout fctional entities could rame our question about the basis o sucha distinction as a request to identiy those properties shared by all andonly fctional characters. For antirealists, the question can be ramed as

ollows: i a fctional character is anything at all, it is part o the contentso a work o fction, or what the fction is about. One may then ask justwhich parts those might be.

Philosophers debating the metaphysics o fction have oten had littleor nothing to say on this topic. Some have deended a broad conception

whereby the label fctional characters covers all objects, things, andevents as well as persons.37 The distinction alluded to above betweeninanimate objects and characters would be groundless and o no criti-cal use. A position o this sort has the advantage o not including any

potentially controversial theses about the nature o agents or persons,but this is an advantage purchased at some cost. Such a conception hasthe shortcoming, or example, o implying that certain ongoing debatesin literary studies are entirely misconceivedsuch as the debate overthe relative importance o character analysis in literary criticism, whichpertains to distinctions that these philosophers deem irrelevant or not

worth drawing in the frst place.38 It also entails that the number ocharacters in even the simplest fctions explodes. At the other extreme,the term character is reserved or representations o persons, given

some more or less stringent conception o personhood (and some o thephilosophical conceptions are indeed so stringent that they would rulethat some o the human beings represented in fctions are not persons).39


18/25


An alternative to these two approaches is to think o characters asrepresented agents, where agents are beings capable o perorming inten-tional actions.40 This minimalist proposal allows us to acknowledge thatsome nonhuman entities in fction are represented as having humanlikequalities and can thus be conceived o as characters; it has the merito ruling out the nut Krakatuk in E. T. A. Homanns Nuknacker undMausekning, while ruling in the intelligent and rebellious appliances inStanislaw Lems Washing Machine Tragedy.41 This proposal also hasthe merit o neutrality with regard to ongoing disputes in psychologyand philosophy regarding the status o personality theory.42

Very briey, the debate in question concerns the explanatory value o

attributing personality structures or character traits to individual humanbeings. The personality theorist argues that it is cogent to explain a per-sons dishonest actions, or example, by reerring to a trait or dispositionthat is a long-standing eature o that individuals personality. This is, inother words, the psychologists correlative to the moral philosophersdiscourse o vices and virtues. The situationist, on the other hand, thinksthat the behavior in question could be better explained by reerringto those aspects o the situation that somehow prompted or elicited adishonest action. Situationists and other social psychologists speak o an

attribution error whereby people explain their own actions in termso exible responses to contexts and situations, while trying to explainthe deeds o others by attributing to them (and herein lies the error)long-standing dispositions or character traits. Armed with this result,situationists complain that many works o fction perpetuate the kindo erroneous thinking that is characteristic o personality theory: thenovelist shows us a character who is explicable uniquely in terms o aruling passion or some such, and we are invited to extend this kind othinking to human beings in the real world. Yet the personality theorist

and the virtue ethicist respond to this entire line o reasoning by sayingthat the ancient way o talking about character and action is not, in act,erroneous, and that moral character, both within and without fction, isat once real and o explanatory and moral import.

We cannot pursue the debate between these contrasting views in thiscontext. Instead, we want to point out that, even i it were establishedthat the explanatory value o character traits has been vastly overrated bypersonality theorists and the discourse o moral psychology more gener-ally, as situationists have argued, this fnding would remain orthogonal

to the question o how agency has been represented in fctions, unlessone is in a hurry to assign cognitive value (or the lack thereo) toctionalcharacterizations. Consider, or example, a possible situationists con-tention that Thackerays characterization o Rebecca Sharp is somehow


19/25


aulty because her multiple deceptions and misdeeds are not sufcientlylinked to the inuence o her situation. This could be right, but it doesnot ollow that the literary work is bad as a result. While works o fctioncan be mined or their psychological insights, this sort o cognitive payois but one o the values o literature, and a work lacking such insightsmay have other qualities worthy o our attention.

Another question that has been explored by philosophers as wellas literary critics is whether every narrative work o fction has at leastone narrator.43 In cases where there is a narrator, it can also be asked

whether this fgure should be counted amongst the characters in thefction. There are reasons why one might think so, at least i we assume

that characters are part o the fctions contentthe part in whichagents and their doings are represented. One such doing is telling orrecounting, and any fgure represented as doing such things qualifesas a character in the story. Some such content is explicit, as in the manylong embedded narratives in Charles Sorels Histoire comique de Francion.

Yet the characterization o the storyteller is sometimes largely or entirelyimplicit. As a storytellers voice or writerly style always represents aspectso his or her agency (or example, in the manner o choosing phrasesand points o view), we may conclude that all narrators are characters.

(Although we do not have space to pursue the topic here, an analogousreasoning extends to implicit readers or auditors, as when Marcel Proustsnarrator anticipates and responds to an objection thatMonsieur le lecteuraddresses to Monsieur lauteur.44)

It does not ollow rom this argument that the characterization o thenarrator is necessarily coherent or plausible. Consider the narrator oVanity Fair, whose statements and quotations tend to convey a seeminglyauthorial perspective on the various agents antics. One is not inclinedto think o this narrator as one o the characters until reading a pas-

sage in chapter 62, where the narrator tells us: It was on this very tourthat I, the present writer o a history o which every word is true, hadthe pleasure to see them frst, and to make their acquaintance. I thenarrator is a person in the story, that is, someone capable o meetingand talking to Becky and the others, then how could this same narratorbe omniscient, or in a position to know that every word about Beckysprivate thoughts is true? One conclusion that could be drawn is that itis true in Thackerays fction that his narrator is an impossible agent, abit like a time traveler who visits his hometown prior to his own birth

and prevents his mother rom giving birth to him.Another question about the basic constitution o the cast o characters

is raised by the fctioneers actual or apparent reerence to real persons.Is it appropriate to apply the designation fctional characters to such


20/25


fgures? For example, in Alexandre Dumass play o 1853, La jeunesse deLouis XIV, Molire serves as the young Louiss secret agent in a varietyo courtly intrigues involving Mazarin and his niece. It is tempting toargue that either Dumass play is a work o fction having no fctionalcharacters, or that it is a work o fction, the primary characters o whichare all historical fgures amiliar to the author and his initial audience.

While some members o that audience may have had no frm opinionsregarding Molire and his relations with Louis XIV, those who weresomewhat well-inormed about seventeenth-century France and the lieo Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, whose nom de plumewas Molire, would prob-ably have doubted, and with good reason, that the ambitious dramatist

was involved in any o the intrigues that make up the action o the play.Such belies, however, presumably did not prevent them rom engagingimaginatively with the contents o the fction. In act, with regard to thisand many kindred examples, the prescribed imaginative attitude involvescomparisons between the content o ones relevant belies (about histori-cal fgures as well as characters in earlier works) and the contents one isbeing invited to imagine. Some o what is believed or known about thehistorical fgure carries over into ones understanding o the fctionalcharacter bearing the same name, but other such belies do not.

Similarly, in appreciating a cinematic adaptation o a well-known liter-ary work, one actively compares the works Rebecca Sharp character tothe characterization bearing that name in the source work, sometimesdecrying, sometimes rejoicing in, the dierences and similarities. This ispart o what it means to appreciate the adaptation as an adaptation, sothat ones appreciative experience o the works is a complicated blendo imaginative engagement and metafctional reection.

ConclusionIn the place o a recapitulation o points rom our descriptive survey,

we propose the ollowing concise ormulation o our own understandingo the key problems and o our preerred approach to their solution.

We deny, contra the Meinongian line, that fctional entities are bestthought o as nonexistents that have some special mode o being calledsubsistence. Although such postulations would certainly provide thesought-ater truth-makers or fctional discourse, they themselves would

appear to stand in need o plausible truth-makers. For similar reasons,we do not fnd it promising to try to explain the reerential unction ofctional discourse in terms o worlds urnished by either concrete orabstract possible entities, at least i talk o fctional worlds is supposed


21/25


to be more than loose and metaphorical. More generally, in this regardwe ollow Roman Ingarden and Amie Thomasson in espousing the as-sumption that the grounds o fctional discourse are quite complex.

A frst such basis is the creative human capacity known traditionally asthe imagination. Irrealists are right to identiy imagining as the distinc-tive type o mental attitude and process that opens the door to fction,

just as the artiact theorist is right to think o works o fction and theircontents as the result o human creativity. To create a work o fction isto engage in a specifc train o imaginings and subsequently to create aprop o some kind, such as a text or an audiovisual display, that can serveto invite others to engage in similar imaginative experiences. A good

philosophical account o how a work o fction can be created beginswith the assumption that human beings have the capacity to engagein imaginings having determinate content, but it does not ollow thatphilosophy can or need provide any deeper explanation o how this ispossible. Works o fction are created only i agents use their imagina-tions in certain kinds o ways and end up endowing the work with adeterminate content, where the term content reers to what is to beimagined in engaging appreciatively with the work qua work o fction.The determinate content o a work o fction owes its existence, then, to

the imaginative process or act, and this is what grounds the truth-valueso such statements as Rebecca Sharp is a fctional character, while alsojustiying the seemingly contrasting contentions that Rebecca Sharpdoes not exist, and that she has a lot o musical talent. While the act oimagining a particular train o thoughts is real, what those thoughts areabout can, but need not, be anything actual or possible.

Lingnan University

NOTES

We are grateul or support or this research provided by a Hong Kong UGC-unded DirectResearch Grant administered by Lingnan University.1 Fred Crews, personal communication.2 William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, ed. Georey andKathleen Tillotson (Boston: Houghton Miin, 1963), 474.3 David Armstrong, Truth and Truthmakers(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004).We are not suggesting that there are no outstanding problems pertaining to conceptso truth or that the truthmakers approach is philosophically neutral or unproblematic.See Helen Beebee and Julian Dodd, eds., Truthmakers: the Contemporary Debate(Oxord:Clarendon, 2005). For additional background on philosophical conceptions o truth, seeWilliam P. Alston, A Realist Conception of Truth(Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1996) andRichard L. Kirkham, Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction(Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1992).4 Skepticism about the veracity o all belies reerring to fction and fctional charactersis, o course, a theoretical option. We will not rehearse the arguments against it here,


22/25


except to say that such an option is hard to square with the practice o literary criticismand with any engagement with and appreciation o works o fction.5 For an overview o Millian and other accounts o the meaning and reerence o

names, see Sam Cumming, Names, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanord.edu/entries/names/#2.1.6 For a strong articulation o reasons supporting skepticism about possible worlds, seeMichael Jubien, Possibility(Oxord: Oxord Univ. Press, 2009), chap. 3. For background,see Ruth Ronen, Possible Worlds in Literary Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,1994).7 For an excellent critical discussion o the possible world semantics o fction, seeDiane Proudoot, Possible World Semantics and Fiction,Journal of Philosophical Logic35(2006): 940. A bullish presentation o a Lewisian possible worlds approach is given inRichard Hanley, As Good as it Gets, Australasian Journal of Philosophy82, no. 1 (2004):11228.

8 Roman Ingarden, Vom Erkennen des literarischen Kunstwerks(Tbingen: Max Niemeyer,1968); The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, trans. Ruth Ann Crowley and Kenneth R.Olson (Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1973), 293.9 For commentary on other possible ways o drawing the distinction, see David Lewis,On the Plurality of Worlds(Oxord: Blackwell, 1986): 8286.10 See, or example, Peter Van Inwagen, Quantifcation and Fictional Discourse, inEmpty Names, Fiction and the Puzzles of Non-existence, ed. Anthony Everett and Thomas Ho-weber (Stanord, CA: CSLI Publications, 2000), 23547, Creatures o Fiction, AmericanPhilosophical Quarterly14 (1977): 299308, and Existence, Ontological Commitment, andFictional Entities, in Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, eds., The Oxford Handbook

of Metaphysics(Oxord: Oxord Univ. Press, 2003), 13157.11 The literature on this topic is vast. Two useul, recent introductions are Stacey Friend,Fictional Characters, Philosophy Compass2, no. 2 (2007): 14156, and Mark Sainsbury,Fiction and Fictionalism(London: Routledge, 2009). Important contributions include Pe-ter Lamarque, Work and Object, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society102, no. 2 (2002):14162, and How to Create a Fictional Character, in The Creation of Art, ed. Berys Gautand Paisley Livingston (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003), 3352, Edward Zalta,Abstract Objects(Dordecht: D. Reidel, 1983), and Intensional Logic and the Metaphysics of In-tentionality(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), and Nicholas Wolterstor, Works and Worldsof Art(Oxord: Clarendon, 1980). For a recent plea or realism about abstract objects, seeLinda Wetzel, Types and Tokens: On Abstract Objects(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009).

12 For more on this topic, see Stuart Brock, The Creationist Fiction: The Case AgainstCreationism About Fictional Characters, Philosophical Review, 119, no. 3 (2010): 33764.13 Fabrice Correia, Ontological Dependence, Philosophy Compass 3, no. 5 (2008):101332; Kit Fine, Ontological Dependence, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society95, no.3 (1995): 26990.14 Amie Thomasson,Fiction and Metaphysics(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999),Fictional Characters and Literary Practices, The British Journal of Aesthetics43, no. 2 (2003):13857, Speaking o Fictional Characters, Dialectica57, no. 2 (2003): 20523, OrdinaryObjects(Oxord: Oxord Univ. Press, 2007), Existence Questions, Philosophical Studies141(2008): 6378, The Easy Approach to Ontology, Axiomathes19 (2009): 115. WhetherThomassons position on the ontology o fctional characters should be classifed as realistor not depends on how one understands that notion, but on a prevalent assumption, shewould count as an antirealist because she allows that the existence o characters dependsin part on human cognition.15 In this regard, Thomassons position parallels contextualist and action-theoreticalarguments in the ontology o works o art to the eect that works are not individuated


23/25


solely in terms o types o artistic structures, texts, or particular objects, but also in termso actors fguring within the context o creation. A history o contextualist ontology o artremains to be rewritten. Forerunners include Stephen C. Pepper, The Work of Art(Bloom-

ington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1955) and C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation(La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1946); see also Gregory Currie, An Ontology of Art(New York:St. Martins, 1989), Arthur Danto, The Transguration of the Commonplace(Cambridge, MA:Harvard Univ. Press, 1981), and David Davies, Art as Performance(Malden, MA: Blackwell,2004).16 Amie Thomasson, The Ontology o Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics, The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism63, no. 3 (2005): 228.17 We cannot develop this thesis at great length here. For a good example o the sorto undamental disagreement that could be reerred to, consider actual critics starklycontrasting claims about the character in Alred Lord Tennysons Tears, idle tears, asdocumented by Kerry McSweeney, Whats the Import? Nineteenth-Century Poems and Contem-

porary Critical Practice(Montreal: McGill-Queens Univ. Press, 2007), 2426.18 Albert Camus, Ltranger, ed. Matthew Ward and Peter Dunwoodie (New York: Knop,1993), 27.19 Amie Thomasson, Fiction and Metaphysics, 10514. For a critical survey o variousdierent ways o dealing with this problem, see R. Hanley, Much Ado About Nothing:Critical Realism Examined, Philosophical Studies115 (2003): 12347.20 Kendall L. Walton, On the (So-Called) Puzzle o Imaginative Resistance, in TheArchitecture of the Imagination: New Essays on Pretence, Possibility, and Fiction, ed. Shaun Nichols(Oxord: Clarendon, 2006), 144; see also his Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundationsof the Representational Arts(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1990). An early propo-

nent o the type o approach Walton develops was Konrad Lange. See his Das Wesen derKunst: Grundzge einer realistischen Kunstlehre(Berlin: G. Grote, 1901), a snippet o whichwas translated by Max Schertel and Melvin M. Rader as Art as Play in A Modern Book ofEsthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin M. Rader (New York: Henry Holt, 1935), 636.21 Here Walton ollows Nicholas Wolterstor, Works and Worlds of Art(New York: OxordUniv. Press, 1980) and Roger Scruton, Art and Imagination (London: Methuen, 1974).Another source is Edward S. Caseys Imagining: A Phenomenological Study(Bloomington:Indiana Univ. Press, 1976), which draws heavily on Jean-Paul Sartres Limaginaire: psycholo-gie phnomnologique de limagination(Paris: Gallimard, 1940); see also Konrad LangesDiebewute Selbsttuschung als Kern des knstlerischen Genusses(Leipzig: Veit, 1895).22 For a survey and proposal in this vein, see Paisley Livingston, Art and Intention: A

Philosophical Study(Oxord: Clarendon, 2005), chap. 6.23 Walton, Mimesis as Make-Believe, 442.24 Peter Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), 191.25 Several philosophers have argued that sentences with empty names express incompletepropositions (because empty names do not reer and the meaning o a proper name is itsreerence). See Frank Adams, Gary Fuller, and Robert Stecker, The Semantics o FictionalNames, Pacic Philosophical Quarterly78, no. 2 (1997):12848, David Braun, Empty Names,Fictional Names, Mythical Names, Nous, 39, no. 4 (2005): 596631, Stacey Friend, TheGreat Beetle Debate: A Study in Imagining with Names, Philosophical Studies(orthcom-ing), Eddy Zemach, Tom Sawyer and the Beige Unicorn, The British Journal of Aesthetics38, no. 2 (1998): 16779, and Marga Reimer, The Problem o Empty Names, AustralasianJournal of Philosophy79 (2001): 491506; or criticisms, Anthony Everett, Empty Namesand Gappy Propositions, Philosophical Studies116 (2003): 136.26 See Mark Sainsbury, Reference without Referents(Oxord: Clarendon, 2005), andFictionand Fictionalism(London: Routledge, 2009).


24/25


27 See also Kent Bach, Giorgione Was So-called Because o his Name, PhilosophicalPerspectives16 (2002): 73103.28 Sainsbury reers to Robert Stalnakers studies on presupposition that, in turn, are

based on the notion o the common ground o a conversation. The common ground oa conversation is defned as common belie about what is accepted (In a context C, P iscommon belie in case, or every believer b in C, P is believed by b and P is believed byb to be believed by all the members in C and so on ad innitum). A presupposition is aproposition belonging to the common ground. See Robert Stalnaker, Presuppositions,Journal of Philosophical Logic2 (1973): 44757, Common Ground, Linguistics and Philosophy25 nos. 56 (2002): 70121.29 Sainsbury situates his discussion o fctional characters in a broader account ointentionality and intensionality. In a nutshell, he thinks that an irrealist about fctionalcharacters would be better o i he or she could provide an unproblematic account othe general structure o intensional contexts like I thought about Pegasus all morning.

The reason is that fction is a special case o intensionality, where intentionality is under-stood as the capacity o the mind to be about things (existent, absent, or nonexisting)and intensionality is the linguistic maniestation o intentionality. See Mark Sainsbury,Fiction and Fictionalism(London: Routledge, 2009), 126.30 Alexius Meinong, ber Gegenstandstheorie, in Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorieund Psychologie(Leipzig: Barth, 1904), 150; trans. On the Theory o Objects, in Realismand the Background of Phenomenology, ed. R. M. Chisholm et al. (New York: Free Press, 1960),76117. For background, see Anna Sierszulska, Meinong on Meaning and Truth(Frankurt:Ontos Verlag, 2005).31 See Terrence Parsons, Nonexistent Objects(New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1980),

Graham Priest, Towards Non-being(Oxord: Oxord Univ. Press, 2005), Prcis oTowardsNon-being, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research76, no. 1 (2008): 185190, Replies toNolan and Kroon, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research76, no.1 (2008): 20814.32 The idea that existence is not a property, but a precondition o having propertieswas advanced against this kind o view by Gilbert Ryle in his contribution to Symposium:Imaginary Objects, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 12, Creativity, Politics, andthe A Priori(1933), 1870.33 This kind o justifcation or accepting a philosophical theory has become part othe common practice in the discipline. We cannot here take up various questions relatedto the limitations o this methodology.34 Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, ed. L. McAlister (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973). For a fne introduction, see Tim Crane, Elements ofMind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind(Oxord: Oxord Univ. Press, 2001).35 For rejoinders to skepticisms about authorship and proposed conceptions o indi-vidual and collective authorship, see Livingston, Art and Intention, chap. 3, and Cinema,Philosophy, Bergman(Oxord: Oxord Univ. Press, 2009), chap. 3.36 For additional discussion o Priests views, see Bob Hale, Into the Abyss, PhilosophiaMathematica15, no. 3 (2007): 94110, and F. W. Kroon, Much Ado about Nothing: Priestand the Reinvention o Noneism, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research76, no. 1 (2008):199207.37 Such a broad usage is presented, or example, by Stacey Friend, Fictional Charac-ters, Philosophy Compass2, no. 2 (2007): 142, and by Edward N. Zalta, The Road BetweenPretense Theory and Abstract Object Theory, in Empty Names, Fiction and the Puzzles ofNon-existence, ed. Anthony Everett and Thomas Howeber (Stanord, CA: CSLI Publications,2000), 11747.38 For a richly documented discussion o a central case, see Margreta De Grazia, Hamletwithout Hamlet(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).


25/25


39 George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory, ed. WilliamG. Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1988), 4546.40 Livingston, Characterization and Fictional Truth in the Cinema, in Post-Theory: Re-

constructing Film Studies, ed. David Bordwell and Nol Carroll (Madison: Univ. o WisconsinPress, 1996), 149; and Tese og anti-tese om begreppet karakter, K&K30 (2002): 12536.41 E. T. A. Homann, Werke, ed. Herbert Krat and Manred Wacker (Frankurt: Insel,1967), 2:296351; Stanislaw Lem, Memoirs of a Space Traveler, trans. Joel Stern and MariaSwiecicka-Ziemianek (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), 89110.42 For background and reerences, as well as a philosophers advocacy o the situationistside in the debate, see John Doris, Lack of Character(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,2002).43 The literature on this topic is enormous. For a start, see Seymour Chatman, Comingto Terms(Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1990), Andrew Kania, Against the Ubiquity oFictional Narrators,Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism63 (2005): 4754, and George M.

Wilson, Elusive Narrators in Literature and Film, Philosophical Studies135 (2007): 7388.44 Marcel Proust, la recherche du temps perdu, ed. Pierre Clarac and Andr Ferr (Paris:Gallimard, 1954), 2: 651.

Documents

42.2.Livingston - Philosophical Perspectives on Fictional Characters