External Thought and Talk about Fiction

This chapter examines the ontological implications of the various ways in which we can think and talk about fictional entities and examines the roles that external thought and talk about fiction can play in the institution of fiction. It argues that those who deny the existence of fictional entities are unable to accommodate the ways in which we think and talk about fictional entities from an external perspective, and that this gives us good reason to accept fictional entities into our ontology. It argues that external thought and talk about fiction are important to the identification of interpretative fictive content. It also argues that such thought and talk can play an important role in improving the stability of the content-determining rules of fiction institutions, and that they can help participants in fiction institutions to coordinate on rules that provide equilibrium solutions to novel coordination problems of communicating imaginings.

Aims, Scope, and Overview

This chapter introduces the issues to be addressed in the book, and provides some general philosophical background to those issues. These issues include metaphysical questions such as: what distinguishes works of fiction from works of non-fiction; what is the nature of fictive utterances; what determines the contents of works of fiction; what kinds of fictive content are there; how broad in scope is fictive content; and what kinds of things are fictional entities? They also include epistemological questions such as: how do audiences identify the contents of authors’ fictive utterances; how does understanding a work of fiction differ from interpreting it; and what role do thinking and talking about fiction from an external perspective play in enabling communication through fiction? The chapter outlines the distinctively institutional approach that the book will take to address those issues. It provides a summary of the argument to be developed over the course of the book. It identifies the limits to the book’s explanatory ambitions. Finally, it provides summaries of the chapters that follow.

Conclusion

In this book, I have explored the implications of taking seriously the claim that fiction is an institution. Drawing on Guala’s account of institutions as systems of regulative rules that provide equilibrium solutions to coordination problems, I have argued that fiction institutions consist in systems of regulative rules that provide equilibrium solutions to coordination problems of communicating imaginings....

Fictional Entities

This chapter addresses the existence and nature of fictional entities. It identifies two distinct conditions sufficient for the existence of fictional entities, each of which is grounded by a reference-fixing rule of fiction institutions. One of these rules describes conditions sufficient for the existence of fictional entities that are not constituted by anything, while the other describes conditions sufficient for the existence of fictional entities that are constituted by other things. It identifies the metaphysical dependence base for the existence of fictional entities and argues that this does not include anything metaphysically mysterious. It then describes the nature of fictional entities and their identity and individuation conditions. Finally, it compares the account fictional entities provided with that of Amie Thomasson and argues that, despite obvious similarities, there are fundamental differences between the accounts.

Fictive Utterances

This chapter examines the nature of fictive utterances and explains what determines their contents. It argues that fictive utterances are declarations. Although such a construal is, in principle, compatible with the claim that their contents are determined by authors’ intentions, it denies that their contents are determined by authors’ intentions to elicit imaginings. Instead, it argues that the rules of fiction institutions determine the contents of fictive utterances by purely conventional means. That is, they enable authors and audiences to coordinate on ways of communicating imaginings that would not be available without those rules. Finally, it identifies various forms those rules can take, such that the contents they assign to fictive utterances are sensitive to the contexts in which those utterances are made.

Fiction Institutions

This chapter explains what fiction institutions are and what it is for a work to be fiction rather than non-fiction. It outlines Guala’s account of institutions as systems of regulative rules that represent equilibrium solutions to coordination problems. It characterizes fiction institutions as those institutions whose rules represent equilibrium solutions to coordination problems of communicating imaginings. It explains both why the communication of imaginings poses coordination problems, and why the coordination problems it poses are distinct from those posed by the communication of beliefs. By elucidating the relation between works of fiction and the institution of fiction, it then explains what distinguishes works of fiction from works that are not fiction and identifies the relation between fictive utterances and works of fiction. Finally, it explains what makes a certain feature of a work of fiction a good or a bad feature of that work, considered as fiction.

The Structure of Fictive Content

This chapter addresses the structure of fictive content. It is usually held that fictive content outstrips the contents of authors’ fictive utterances. One account proposes that this additional content is determined by general principles of indirect generation. This chapter rejects the claim that additional fictive content is determined by general principles. It defends an alternative account on which fictive content is much more limited in scope than most rival accounts take it to be. It argues that fictive content consists in the contents of authors’ fictive utterances, together with interpretative fictive content. Interpretative fictive content consists in further contents that authors intentionally convey by making their fictive utterances. It argues that audiences grasp these further contents by drawing inferences to the best explanation about authors’ intentions, not by appeal to general principles.