Abstract. On the Direct Reference thesis, proper names are what I call ‘genuine terms’, terms whose sole semantic contributions to the propositions expressed by their use are the terms’ semantic referents. But unless qualified, this thesis implies the false consequence that sentences containing names that fail to refer can never express true or false propositions. (Consider ‘The ancient Greeks worshipped Zeus’, for instance.) I suggest that while names are typically and fundamentally used as genuine terms, there is a small class (...) of names, which I call ‘descriptive names’, whose reference is fixed by commonly associated definite descriptions, and I also suggest that there is an idiom of natural language on which such names can be used as abbreviated definite descriptions in a limited set of sentential contexts, including (1) positive and negative existentials, (2) cognitive ascriptions, and (3) uses of names to talk about myth. Uses of empty descriptive names in such contexts can then be either true or false. Relying on Gregory Currie’s theory of truth in fiction, I also propose an idiom on which fictional names can be used as short for a certain type of description in talk about fiction. Along the way, I provide arguments that names are used as short for descriptions in substantive existential statements as well as in both metamythic and metafictive contexts. I also discuss and criticize alternative views of these matters, including the views of David Braun, Saul Kripke, Peter van Inwagen, and others. (shrink)

This paper serves as a kind of field guide to certain passages in the literature which bear upon the foundational theory of abstract objects. The foundational theory assimilates ideas from key philosophers in both the analytical and phenomenological traditions. I explain how my foundational theory of objects serves as a common ground where analytic and phenomenological concerns meet. I try to establish how the theory offers a logic that systematizes a well-known phenomenological kind of entity, and I try to show (...) the various ways the theory systematizes the ideas of many analytic philosophers. The ideas of Plato, Leibniz, Frege, Russell, Goedel and even Kripke become connected through those of Brentano, Meinong, Husserl, and Mally. -/- The field guide will not only document the passages in which the distinction between two kinds of predication originates, but also document the other surprising, and often unrelated, contexts where the distinction reappears in the work of others. It will also document ways in which the theory can be used to represent precisely the ideas of the philosophers mentioned above. The resulting guide will bring together the works of many different authors, including some clearly within the analytic tradition, some clearly within the phenomenological tradition, and some who straddle the divide. (shrink)

. On the Direct Reference thesis, proper names are what I call ‘genuine terms’, terms whose sole semantic contributions to the propositions expressed by their use are the terms’ semantic referents. But unless qualified, this thesis implies the false consequence that sentences containing names that fail to refer can never express true or false propositions. I suggest that while names are typically and fundamentally used as genuine terms, there is a small class of names, which I call ‘descriptive names’, whose (...) reference is fixed by commonly associated definite descriptions, and I also suggest that there is an idiom of natural language on which such names can be used as abbreviated definite descriptions in a limited set of sentential contexts, including positive and negative existentials, cognitive ascriptions, and uses of names to talk about myth. Uses of empty descriptive names in such contexts can then be either true or false. Relying on Gregory Currie’s theory of truth in fiction, I also propose an idiom on which fictional names can be used as short for a certain type of description in talk about fiction. Along the way, I provide arguments that names are used as short for descriptions in substantive existential statements as well as in both metamythic and metafictive contexts. I also discuss and criticize alternative views of these matters, including the views of David Braun, Saul Kripke, Peter van Inwagen, and others. -/-. (shrink)

In The Metaphysics of Interpretation, I explore the ontological issues surrounding fictional characters, literary works, and literary interpretation. My central claim is that if one accepts a certain position on the ontology of fictional characters and literary works – artifactualism – then, under certain circumstances, the misinterpretation of a literary work will result in the full-fledged destruction of that work. Some related matters that are studied include: realism about fictional characters, artifactualism’s implications for the debate between textualism and constructivism, the (...) seeming temporal “gappiness” of literary works, and the question of validity in interpretation. (shrink)

As our data will show, negative existential sentences containing socalled empty names evoke the same strong semantic intuitions in ordinary speakers and philosophers alike.Santa Claus does not exist.Superman does not exist.Clark Kent does not exist.Uttering the sentences in (1) seems to say something truth-evaluable, to say something true, and to say something different for each sentence. A semantic theory ought to explain these semantic intuitions.The intuitions elicited by (1) are in apparent conflict with the Millian view of proper names. According (...) to Millianism, the meaning (or 'semantic value') of a proper name is just its referent. But empty names, such as 'Santa Claus' and 'Superman', appear to lack a .. (shrink)

A critical reflection on John Woods's new monograph, Truth in Fiction – Rethinking its Logic. I focus in particular on Woods’s world-inheritance thesis (what others have variously called ‘background,’ ‘the principle of minimal departure,’ and ‘the reality assumption,’ and which replaces Woods’s earlier ‘fill-conditions’) and its interplay with auctorial say-so, arguing that world-inheritance actually constrains auctorial say-so in ways Woods has not anticipated.

In this paper, we compare two theories, modal Meinongianism and object theory, with respect to several issues that have been discussed recently in the literature. In particular, we raise some objections for MM, undermine some of the objections that its defenders raise for OT, and we point out some virtues of the latter with respect to the former.

According to standard Creationism about fictional characters, each fictional character is created by its single author independently, or created by its co-authors cooperatively, or created by its independent authors independently. I argue that standard Creationism faces the Creator-Determining Problem. I propose a non-standard form of Creationism, i.e., Conjunctive Creationism, according to which each fictional character is conjunctively created. I argue that Conjunctive Creationism does not face the Creator-Determining Problem. By responding to four potential worries, I provide a further defense. My (...) conclusion is that Conjunctive Creationism is a more promising form of Creationism.Selon la norme du créationnisme concernant les personnages fictifs, chaque personnage est soit créé indépendamment par son seul auteur, soit créé par ses co-auteurs en collaboration, soit encore créé indépendamment par ses auteurs indépendants. Cette norme doit cependant faire face au problème de l’identification du créateur. Pour éviter ce problème, je propose d’adopter le créationnisme conjonctif, selon lequel chaque personnage est créé conjointement. Je défends cette proposition en répondant à quatre inquiétudes potentielles. Je conclus que le créationnisme conjonctif est une forme plus prometteuse du créationnisme. (shrink)

Philosophers are very fond of making non-factualist claims—claims to the effect that there is no fact of the matter as to whether something is the case. But can these claims be coherently stated in the context of classical logic? Some care is needed here, we argue, otherwise one ends up denying a tautology or embracing a contradiction. In the end, we think there are only two strategies available to someone who wants to be a non-factualist about something, and remain within (...) the province of classical logic. But one of these strategies is rather controversial, and the other requires substantially more work than is often supposed. Being a non-factualist is no easy business, and it may not be the most philosophically perspicuous way to go. (shrink)

The author engages a question raised about theories of nonexistent objects. The question concerns the way names of fictional characters, when analyzed as names which denote nonexistent objects, acquire their denotations. Since nonexistent objects cannot causally interact with existent objects, it is thought that we cannot appeal to a `dubbing' or a `baptism'. The question is, therefore, what is the starting point of the chain? The answer is that storytellings are to be thought of as extended baptisms, and the details (...) of this response receive attention in the paper. Once the storytelling is complete, and the characters have been baptized, a priori metaphysical principles linking the storytelling with the realm of nonexistent objects provide the referential, non-causal connection between the names used in the storytelling and the objects denoted by such names. [This is the original English version of an article that first appeared in German translation, translated into German by Arnold Günther and published in the Zeitschrift für Semiotik 9/1-2 (1987): 85-95. The version that appears here is, for the most part, unaltered.]. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fictional objects (...) so conceived may be ontically indeterminate; in the last part, I consider what happens when vague existence and indeterminate identity are claimed within fictional texts. (shrink)

Fictional realism allows direct reference theorists to provide a straightfor- ward analysis of the semantics of fictional discourse by admitting into their ontology a set of objects (ficta) that serve as the referents of fictional names. Ficta may be modeled using an axiomatic object theory, but actualist interpretations of the formalism have been the subject of recent objections. In this paper, I provide an interpretation of object theory’s formalism that is consistent with actualism and avoids these objections. Drawing on insights (...) from an actualist semantics for quantified modal logic, a central point in my proposal is to interpret ficta as contingently nonconcrete objects. (shrink)

The authors provide an object-theoretic analysis of two paradoxes in the theory of possible worlds and propositions stemming from Russell and Kaplan. After laying out the paradoxes, the authors provide a brief overview of object theory and point out how syntactic restrictions that prevent object-theoretic versions of the classical paradoxes are justified philosophically. The authors then trace the origins of the Russell paradox to a problematic application of set theory in the definition of worlds. Next the authors show that an (...) object-theoretic analysis of the Kaplan paradox reveals that there is no genuine paradox at all, as the central premise of the paradox is simply a logical falsehood and hence can be rejected on the strongest possible grounds—not only in object theory but for the very framework of propositional modal logic in which Kaplan frames his argument. The authors close by fending off a possible objection that object theory avoids the Russell paradox only by refusing to incorporate set theory and, hence, that the object-theoretic solution is only a consequence of the theory’s weakness. (shrink)

I defend a cluster of views about names from fiction and myth. The views are based on two claims: first, proper names refer directly totheir bearers; and second, names from fiction and myth are genuinely empty, they simply do not refer. I argue that when such names are used in direct discourse, utterances containing them have truth values but do not express propositions. I also argue that it is a mistake to think that if an utterance of, for example, “Vulcan (...) is a planet” fails to express a proposition, then an utterance of “Le Verrier believed that Vulcan is a planet” cannot express a proposition. The argument applies to claims about fiction, such as “Sherlock Holmes is strong,” and claims about the attitudes of authors and auditors. The upshot is a semantics for fictional statements that provides a satisfying way for direct reference theorists to avoid taking fictional entities to be abstract objects and to accept the commonsense view that what is true in a fiction is ultimately a matter of what is pretended to be the case. (shrink)

Fictionalism about a kind of disputed object is often motivated by the fact that the view interprets discourse about those objects literally without an ontological commitment to them. This paper argues that this motivation is inadequate because some viable alternatives to fictionalism have similar attractions. Meinongianism—the view that there are true statements about non-existent objects—is one such view. Meinongianism bears significant similarity to fictionalism, so intuitive doubts about its viability are difficult to sustain for fictionalists. Moreover, Meinongianism avoids some of (...) fictionalism’s weaknesses, thus it is even preferable to fictionalism in some respects. (shrink)

The authors consider a recurring objection to fictional realism, the view that fictional characters are objects. The authors call this the counting objection. Russell presses a version of the objection against Meinong’s view. Everett presses a version of the objection against contemporary fictional realist views, as do Nolan and Sandgren. As the authors see it, the objection assumes that the fictional realist must provide criteria of identity for fictional characters, so its force depends on the plausibility of that assumption. Rather (...) than coming up with such criteria, a fictional realist might argue that the demand is misplaced. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to present and analyze some versions of make-believe theories for singular negative existentials. I will quickly present Evans’ perspective and, in greater detail, the perspectives of Kroon and Walton. I will claim that neither Evans nor Walton provide the right account of the phenomenon of singular negative existentials, and that Kroon’s perspective is better than both. However, I will argue that the three theories have the same problem, which I call the problem of semantic (...) motivation. (shrink)

Is arguing over ontology a mistake? A recent proposal by Karen Bennett suggests that some metaphysical disputes, such as those over constitution and composition, can be dismissed on epistemic grounds. Given that both sides in a dispute try to minimize the differences between them, there are no good metaphysical grounds for choosing between them. In this paper, I expand on her epistemic dismissivism, arguing that given the Quinean conception of the task and method of metaphysics, we are warranted in believing (...) that all ontological disputes will end in a draw, even if they have not yet done so. By a draw, I mean that while both sides in a dispute are genuinely disagreeing about what there is and there are still moves open to them, there are no moves remaining that will advance the discourse further. (shrink)