Frederick Kroon

A Critical Introduction to Fictionalism provides a clear and comprehensive understanding of an important alternative to realism. Drawing on questions from ethics, the philosophy of religion, art, mathematics, logic and science, this is a complete exploration of how fictionalism contrasts with other non-realist doctrines and motivates influential fictionalist treatments across a range of philosophical issues. Defending and criticizing influential as well as emerging fictionalist approaches, this accessible overview discuses physical objects, universals, God, moral properties, numbers and other fictional entities. Where possible it draws general lessons about the conditions under which a fictionalist treatment of a class of items is plausible. Distinguishing fictionalism from other views about the existence of items, it explains the central features of this key metaphysical topic. Featuring an historical survey, definitions of key terms, characterisations of important subdivisions, objections and problems for fictionalism, and contemporary fictionalist treatments of several issues, A Critical Introduction to Fictionalism is a valuable resource for students of metaphysics as well as students of philosophical methodology. It is the only book of its kind.

A Critical Introduction to Fictionalism provides a clear and comprehensive understanding of an important alternative to realism. Drawing on questions from ethics, the philosophy of religion, art, mathematics, logic and science, this is a complete exploration of how fictionalism contrasts with other non-realist doctrines and motivates influential fictionalist treatments across a range of philosophical issues. Defending and criticizing influential as well as emerging fictionalist approaches, this accessible overview discuses physical objects, universals, God, moral properties, numbers and other fictional entities. Where possible it draws general lessons about the conditions under which a fictionalist treatment of a class of items is plausible. Distinguishing fictionalism from other views about the existence of items, it explains the central features of this key metaphysical topic. Featuring an historical survey, definitions of key terms, characterisations of important subdivisions, objections and problems for fictionalism, and contemporary fictionalist treatments of several issues, A Critical Introduction to Fictionalism is a valuable resource for students of metaphysics as well as students of philosophical methodology. It is the only book of its kind.

One example of the impressive breadth, depth, and deep interconnectedness of Fine’s work concerns his views about what sorts of entities we should commit ourselves to, as philosophers. In “The Question of Ontology” he challenges existing accounts of the philosophical task of ontology, rejecting a Quinean concern with what there is in favor of a focus on what entities are real. Fine thinks such a notion of reality is primitive, although linked to the notion of being ungrounded. The present chapter constitutes a critique of Fine’s interconnected set of ideas about the task of ontology, and defends the ability of quantificational constructions to capture ontological commitments, while questioning the usefulness to ontology of a primitive concept of reality.

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.

Dialetheists think that their rejection of ex falso quodlibet means that they cannot be saddled with the claim that anything whatsoever is true. But what precisely is wrong with trivialism, as Priest calls the position that everything is indeed true (and also false)? Might not the actual world be trivial, even if we are constrained (as Priest argues) to think that it is not? But such a dialetheist realism is one that most philosophers would find intolerable, and this paper argues that, to the extent that arguments for dialetheism prove hard to resist, they therefore provide a reason for being anti-realist about discourse capable of expressing dialetheia. In particular, they provide a reason for adopting a fictionalist version of dialetheism in which it is only fictional that a word like ‘true’ stands for a genuine property.

Within contemporary, analytic philosophy, “Fictionalism”—broadly understood as a view that uses a notion of fiction in order to resolve certain philosophical problems that do not necessarily have anything to do with fiction—has been on the scene for some time. A well-known collection, Fictionalism in Metaphysics, provided a good indication of the scope of the view (and its problems) as things stood in the early 2000s. But more than a decade has passed since the appearance of that volume and much has happened in philosophy, including in the area of fictionalism. In addition to the fact that fictionalism in philosophy appears to be more popular than ever, there are now competing views about how to tackle some of the issues that fictionalists aim to address. Moreover, fictionalism has branched out into many more areas, and there is a continuing debate about what fictionalism in philosophy actually amounts to and about how precisely it ought to be pursued. There is thus a pressing need for a volume such as Fictionalism in Philosophy. After a detailed discussion in the book’s introductory chapter of how, in the light of these ongoing debates, philosophers should think of fictionalism and its connection to metaontology more generally, the remaining chapters provide readers with some of the most current and up-to-date work on fictionalism, both for and against. As such, the volume will be of interest to professional philosophers as well as to graduate students in philosophy and to advanced undergraduates.

This paper begins with a puzzle about certain temporal expressions: phrases like ‘Jones as he was ten years ago’ and ‘the Jones of ten years ago’. There are reasons to take these as substantival, to be interpreted as terms for temporal parts. But it seems that the same reifying strategy would also force us to countenance a host of less attractive posits, among them fictional counterparts of real things (to correspond to such phrases as ‘Garrison as he was in the movie JFK') and much more. I argue that there is a better way: we need only the idea of pretense or make‐believe to make sense of claims embedding such phrases, leaving us with no reason, so far, to accept an ontology of temporal parts.

This chapter is about ontological issues that arise in the context of discourse within and about fiction and fictional characters. Our main focus will be on the divide between broadly realist accounts of fictional characters (the entities supposedly designated by purely fictional terms) and broadly antirealist accounts. Understanding what is at stake requires a brief look both at the nature of fiction, and at the nature of fictional language, in particular the ways in which the semantics of fictional language raises ontological issues. We also consider some arguments that are more directly ontological. In the final section, we turn from ontology to metaphysics and look at the dominant realist theories of fictional objects.

According to dialetheists, there are true contradictions. Anti-dialetheists deny this. David Lewis famously thought that the dialetheist’s toleration of contradiction was beyond the pale and made dialogue between the two sides impossible. But this sceptical view presents him with at least two problems. First, what do we do about the apparent appearance of contradiction when we reason about certain topics such as truth? Secondly, contrary to any summary dismissal of contradiction, don’t we often at least contemplate and imagine things that are impossible? Lewis responded that we sometimes make believe that impossibilities are possible, “subtle ones at least”, but that these cases seem to require a distinction between the subtle ones and the blatant ones, a distinction that he for one didn’t know how to draw. In this paper, I argue that there is a reading of Lewis’s remarks on which they not only suggest an attractive account of the imaginability of the impossible, but also a potentially compelling solution to the kind of paradoxes that drive dialetheism, as well as an equally natural caution about how far such a solution can be taken.

The best-known arguments for the reality of emotions to fictional characters are (on their own) unable to show that appreciators of fiction have genuine emotional attitudes to fictional characters. At best, they point to the need to distinguish fictional emotions as _states_ from fictional emotions as (relational) _attitudes_. I argue for this position by using an argumentative strategy that parallels one found in Brentano’s reist account of intentional states involving non-existent objects. The conception of emotional states that emerges yields a natural anti-realist conception of the intentional objects of such states and supports the view that we can have genuine emotions for unreal fictional objects. I contrast this view with Tim Crane’s and Mark Sainsbury’s well-known anti-realist views of intentionality.

The best-known arguments for the reality of emotions to fictional characters are (on their own) unable to show that appreciators of fiction have genuine emotional attitudes to fictional characters. At best, they point to the need to distinguish fictional emotions as states from fictional emotions as (relational) attitudes. I argue for this position by using an argumentative strategy that parallels one found in Brentano’s reist account of intentional states involving non-existent objects. The conception of emotional states that emerges yields a natural anti-realist conception of the intentional objects of such states and supports the view that we can have genuine emotions for unreal fictional objects. I contrast this view with Tim Crane’s and Mark Sainsbury’s well-known anti-realist views of intentionality.

The topic of fictional objects and their nature is a familiar one, the topic of fictional properties less so. This article focuses on the way artefactualism – now arguably the most popular form of realism about fictional objects – might be extended to give an account of fictional properties. After describing what seems the most developed such extension, the article articulates a serious problem it faces, before showing how artefactualism about fictional properties would benefit from certain insights contained in an alternative abstract-object version of fictional realism.

In Reference without Referents, Mark Sainsbury aims to provide an account of reference that honours the common-sense view that sentences containing empty names like "Vulcan" and "Santa Claus" are entirely intelligible, and that many such sentences -"Vulcan doesn't exist", "Many children believe that Santa Claus will give them presents at Christmas", etc.- are literally true. Sainsbury's account endorses the Davidsonian program in the theory of meaning, and combines this with a commitment to Negative Free Logic, which holds that all simple sentences containing empty names are false. In this critical review, we pose a number of problems for this account. In particular, we question the ability of Negative Free Logic to make appropriate sense of the truth of familiar sentences containing empty names, including negative existential claims like "Vulcan doesn't exist". /// En Reference without Referents, Mark Sainsbury se propone ofrecer una explicación de la referencia que respete la idea de sentido común de que las oraciones con nombres vacíos como "Vulcano" y "Santa Claus" son completamente inteligibles, y que muchas de oraciones de este tipo -"Vulcano no existe", "Muchos niños creen que Santa Claus les traerá regalos en Navidad", y demás- son literalmente verdaderas. La propuesta de Sainsbury se inscribe dentro del programa davidsoniano en teoría del significado, y combina éste con un compromiso con la Lógica Libre Negativa, según la cual todas las oraciones simples que contienen nombres vacíos son falsas. En este estudio crítico, presentamos varios problemas de esta explicación. En particular, ponemos en duda la habilidad de la Lógica Libre Negativa de entender de manera apropiada la verdad de oraciones conocidas que contienen nombres vacíos, incluidas negaciones de existencia como "Vulcano no existe".

The present chapter describes Mill's account of language and the wider goals that he sets for his account, such as its relation to logic and reasoning. While the main purpose of the chapter is expository, it also engages with the common perception among philosophers of language that Mill's views of language are outdated, apart, possibly, from his purely denotative account of proper names. By focusing on Mill's view of names as well as propositions, including his conflation of predication and assertion, his struggles with the import of identity proposition, and his attempts to distinguish real from verbal propositions, the chapter argues that Mill's struggles often mirror struggles that still affect 21st century philosophy of language.