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Modal Meinongianism and fiction: the best of three worlds

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Abstract

We outline a neo-Meinongian framework labeled as Modal Meinongian Metaphysics (MMM) to account for the ontology and semantics of fictional discourse. Several competing accounts of fictional objects are originated by the fact that our talking of them mirrors incoherent intuitions: mainstream theories of fiction privilege some such intuitions, but are forced to account for others via complicated paraphrases of the relevant sentences. An ideal theory should resort to as few paraphrases as possible. In Sect. 1, we make this explicit via two methodological principles, called the Minimal Revision and the Acceptability Constraint. In Sect. 2, we introduce the standard distinction between internal and external fictional discourse. In Sects. 35, we discuss the approaches of (traditional) Meinongianism, Fictionalism, and Realism—and their main troubles. In Sect. 6 we propose our MMM approach. This is based upon (1) a modal semantics including impossible worlds (Subsect. 6.1); (2) a qualified Comprehension Principle for objects (Subsect. 6.2); (3) a notion of existence-entailment for properties (Subsect. 6.3). In Sect. 7 we present a formal semantics for MMM based upon a representation operator. And in Sect. 8 we have a look at how MMM solves the problems of the three aforementioned theories.

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Notes

  1. First, proper names such as “Sherlock Holmes” and “Pegasus” cannot be understood as (abbreviations of) definite descriptions, as Russell and, more explicitly, Quine had hoped. Second, no one has an idea of how systematic paraphrases of fictional discourse could be carried out. To pick an example from van Inwagen 2003, p. 136, it is difficult to get rid of such complex quantificational structures as: “There is a fictional character who, for every novel, either appears in that novel or is a model for a character who does”. Third, the Russell-Quine paraphrases, even when they can actually be carried out, seem unable to preserve the right truth values and entailments. We want to appreciate the intuitive difference in truth value between “Anna Karenina is a woman” and “Anna Karenina is a teddy bear”, but the standard Russell-Quine analysis makes all such claims indiscriminately false.

  2. Actually, Russell’s famous [1905a, b] criticisms of Meinong addressed definite descriptions, so the UCP might accordingly be reformulated as:

    (UCP) Any definite description ιxα[x] designates an object satisfying the description.

  3. Plus, perhaps, whatever properties follow from them according to a given notion of entailment (more on this later).

  4. Now and then the inconsistency may be unintentional. For instance, in one of Conan Doyle’s stories, The Sign of the Four, we are told that Watson limps because of a war wound at his leg; in A Study in Scarlet, Watson’s wound is not on his leg, but on his shoulder, and Watson does not limp. But sometimes the inconsistency may be essential to the plot. Suppose we write a novel, and in its first chapter we have the Mad Mathematician produce a round square. If the intentional inconsistency is excised, the fact that mathematicians all over the world are amazed by this result in the second chapter becomes unexplainable.

  5. Here are a few examples, taken from Terence Parsons’ classic works (1979a, 1980). Nuclear predicates: “is blue”, “is tall”, “kicked Socrates”, “was kicked by Socrates”, “kicked somebody”, “is golden”, “is a mountain”. Extranuclear predicates: Ontological: “exists”, “is mythical”, “is fictional”; Modal: “is possible”, “is impossible”; Intentional: “is thought about by Meinong”, “is worshipped by someone”; Technical: “is complete”, “is consistent”.

  6. Fine (1982), p. 97. See also Fine (1984), pp. 135ff., for an explanation of the close connections between Parsons’ nuclear Meinongianism and literalism.

  7. As an anonymous referee has pointed out to me, pretence theories also have the problem of giving a semantics for claims of the form “It is pretended that Holmes lived in Baker Street”, without lapsing into some form of Meinongian or Platonic realism.

  8. This solves the problem of inconsistent fiction: fictional characters can be ascribed inconsistent properties in internal fictional discourse, for they do not actually instantiate them. Notice that the holding and being ascribed relations do not constitute, according to van Inwagen, special kinds of predication such as Zalta’s encoding of properties by abstract objects that do not exemplify them (see Zalta 1983). It is not that fictional objects somehow have the properties ascribed to them within fictional works, but do not exemplify them. Internal fictional discourse is taken by van Inwagen precisely as a kind of pretence (see van Inwagen (2003), p. 150, fn. 18).

  9. van Inwagen (1977), p. 308 fn. 11.

  10. Millianism being the view according to which the semantic content of such singular terms as names and demonstratives is exhausted by their referents, which enter as constituents of the propositions expressed by the sentences including such singular terms.

  11. For a comprehensive perspective on impossible worlds, see Berto 2009. On the controversial metaphysical status of such worlds, see Berto (2010).

  12. To be more precise, there are many such worlds, since representations are incomplete with respect to many details. For instance, is the world of Sherlock Holmes a world where Holmes has an even or an odd number of hairs on his head when he first meets Watson? (The example comes from Lewis (1978), p. 270.) Doyle tells us nothing about it. One should assume that there are various “Sherlock Holmes worlds”, and that the question has different answers at different worlds.

  13. Actually, they talk of concreteness-entailing properties, but it is easy to provide a rough-and-ready translation from their modal theory to MMM.

  14. The following formal semantics comes basically from Priest’s (2005) account, but with a few adjustments.

  15. This is quite natural for Meinongians. People assume variable domains in ordinary modal semantics to account for the idea that different things may exist at different worlds. But in a Meinongian framework the domain of each world is simply the totality of objects: that some object o exists at world w 1, but not at world w 2, is accounted for by having o satisfy the existence predicate E! at w 1 and not at w 2, and all the epicycles of Kripke variable domain semantics are left behind. Simplex sigillum veri.

  16. The idea was introduced by Rantala 1982 in order to provide a semantics for intentional operators making logical omniscience fail.

  17. In fact, one may also define logical consequence as truth preservation at all possible worlds in all interpretations: the semantics sketched contains nothing to differentiate @ from any other world w in this respect, insofar as w ∈ P, that is, w is possible (we are into what follows logically from what, therefore, is what follows from what at the worlds where logic is not different).

  18. Does the distinction between existence-entailing properties and not existence-entailing ones perfectly match with the one between properties ascribed, respectively, in internal and external fictional discourse? Well, not quite. Internal fictional discourse can ascribe to (purely) fictional characters properties that are not existence-entailing; for instance, Doyle may have ascribed to Holmes, in one of his stories, the property of being thought about by Moriarty. But also, internal fictional discourse can ascribe properties that do not entail existence to characters that do not exist even at the worlds that realize the story. For instance, we may write a novel about a girl, Ricky, who falls in love with a fictional character, Prince Roland, described in a book she is reading. Not only Prince Roland does not exist at the actual world (as well as the fictional book Ricky is reading); but Roland does not exist at the worlds that make our story true either (whereas the book Ricky is reading does). At those worlds, Roland is a nonexistent, purely fictional object Ricky falls in love with. So several properties that do not entail existence, such as the one of being a fictional character, can be ascribed to him in the context of the internal fictional discourse.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Friederike Moltmann, Robert Stalnaker, Shahid Rahman, Alberto Voltolini, Benoît Conti, and an anonymous referee, for comments and helpful suggestions on various versions of this paper.

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Correspondence to Francesco Berto.

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Berto, F. Modal Meinongianism and fiction: the best of three worlds. Philos Stud 152, 313–334 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9479-2

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