Carola Barbero

In ontology, realism and anti-realism may be taken as opposite attitudes towards entities of different kinds, so that one may turn out to be a realist with respect to certain entities, and an anti-realist with respect to others. In this book, the editors focus on this controversy concerning social entities in general and fictional entities in particular, the latter often being considered nowadays as kinds of social entities. More specifically, fictionalists (those who maintain that we only make-believe that there are entities of a certain kind) and creationists (those who believe that entities of a certain kind are the products of human activity) present themselves as the champions of the anti-realist and the realist stance, respectively, regarding the above entities. By evaluating the pros and cons of both these positions, this book intends to focus new light on a longstanding debate.

There are some others whom we will never have the chance to meet because they do not exist: Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina and Nana, for instance. The reason they are something different from us may seem obvious; they are, after all, fictional entities. But what does it mean when we say that they do not exist? That they are nothing at all, or that they are simply different from us? By assuming a realist ontological perspective we will explain what sort of things fictional literary entities are, comparing them both to existing and to non-existing entities that resemble them in some respects (what is the difference between the historical Napoleon and the Napoleon in War and Peace? Are there similarities between fictional entities as created entities and other artifacts?). Finally, we will determine which theory gives the best account of fictional entities as things other than ourselves.

Carola Barbero | : Je m’intéresse dans cet article aux émotions que nous ressentons lorsque nous lisons une oeuvre de fiction. Certains philosophes pensent que notre implication émotionnelle dans la fiction constitue un paradoxe, et implique soit une forme d’irrationalité, soit la participation à un jeu de « faire semblant ». Ici, je soutiendrai qu’une Théorie de l’Objet à la Meinong, en défendant une approche réaliste des émotions liées la fiction, permet de résoudre adéquatement ce paradoxe de la fiction. | : This essay concerns the emotions that we feel when reading a work of fiction. Some philosophers think that our emotional engagement with fiction gives rise to a paradox and involves either irrationality or participation in a game of make believe. The aim of this work is to show how the paradox of fiction can be dissolved by making use of an Object Theory in a Meinongian style.

Gli oggetti fittizi sono quegli oggetti presenti nelle opere di finzione, dalla letteratura al cinema, dal teatro ai dipinti. Questo saggio prende in con­siderazione, prevalentemente, gli oggetti della finzione letteraria. Tali og­getti pongono interessanti quesiti tanto sul versante ontologico quanto sul versante semantico: in primo luogo occorre fare chiarezza sulle condizioni alle quali essi possono legittimamente essere considerati degli oggetti, in se­condo luogo è importante individuare il valore semantico degli enunciati de­signanti oggetti di tal sorta e infine è in­di­spensabile esplicitare lo statuto on­tologico di tali entità al fine di spiegare come avviene che pro­viamo emo­zioni nei loro confronti.Fictional entities are those entities we find in fictional works, from li­te­rature to cinema, from theatre to paintings. This essay will mostly concern li­terary fictional entities. These entities pose interesting questions both for se­mantics and for ontology: first we need to clarify the conditions ac­cording to which they can legitimately be considered as objects, secondly we need to understand the semantical value of sentences referring to ob­jects of that sort, and finally we need to emphasize the importance of those en­tities in order to explain how does it happen that we prove emotions to­wards them.