Steffen Neuß

By holding a very vague ontology of fictional entities, Peter van Inwagen tries to avoid many difficulties which more precise theories on this topic face. Moreover, he claims that his theory also easily solves several problems without creating new ones. In order to prove whether this is really so, we confront (a fictional?) Peter van Inwagen in a dialogue with implications and follow-up questions of his theses concerning creatures of fiction. However, we do not hold one central thesis against him, but rather try to help him overcome his vagueness and be more precise by answering our questions which relate – among other things – to the genesis of fictional creatures as well as particular border cases.

Mitchell Greenʼs conception of the thesis of Literary Cognitivism states that literary fiction can be a source of knowledge that depends crucially on its being fictional. By a modal argument the authors show that the criterion of fictionality cannot be crucial to the epistemic value of literary fiction. Rather, it lays in a certain kind of distance, e.g. a temporal, cultural, or interpersonal one. This will be motivated by drawing parallels to Gadamerʼs hermeneutics, especially his conception of fusion of horizons. In doing so, we agree with Green’s characterisation of knowledge that can be gained from engaging with literary fiction, but present a different approach to the source of this knowledge. At the same time, this approach enables us to extend the epistemic value of literary fiction both quantitatively and qualitatively.