Reflex and Bone Structure

This chapter covers some central topics related to narrative fiction, taking as its starting point the Radical Fictionalist focus on peripheral discourse and fictional telling. In particular, the chapter discusses certain features of allegedly inconsistent fictions and of storyworld importation, with particular attention to the theory in David Lewis’ ‘Truth in Fiction’ and to the case of postmodernist literature. The chapter also discusses some aspects of unreliable narratives, and it puts forth an analysis of alleged cases of importation by appealing to the closure of peripheral discourse. Finally, this chapter defends a Radical Fictionalist take on the distinction between nested and framed narratives.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

This chapter presents a Radical Fictionalist analysis of talk about fiction, as in my utterances of ‘Fahrquhar was a well to do planter’ or of ‘according to Bierce’s Occurrence, Fahrquhar was a well to do planter’. According to this chapter’s favourite approach, namely the Way of Retelling, the former sentence does not encode a proposition, and the latter does not involve a sentential operator. The central sections of this chapter justify the sense in which these sentences are not in the business of truth, and are rather to be assessed according to the normative dimension of faithfulness. The final sections of this chapter present an alternative to the Way of Retelling, namely the Way of Truth. This hypothesis remains consistent with the premises of Radical Fictionalism, but it satisfies those who insist that fiction talk is to be analysed as elliptical talk concerned with actual truth.

Introduction

This introduction presents a concise plan for the book, and it provides a sketch of the sense of ‘fictionalism’ relevant for what will follow. It also anticipates the relationships between Radical Fictionalism and so-called non-realist views of fictional discourse, it sketches the consequences of Radical Fictionalism for the distinction between storyworld and periphery, and it introduces the reverberations of Radical Fictionalism on some central themes in the study of narrative. Three homages serve as an indirect preliminary description of the background for Radical Fictionalism, namely Kendall Walton’s Mimesis as Make-Believe, David Lewis’ ‘Truth in Fiction’, and John Searle’s ‘The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse’.

Conclusion

This conclusion wraps up the discussion of Radical Fictionalism with a brief summary of the ideas discussed throughout the book. It rehearses the main tenets of Radical Fictionalism and their consequences for fictional discourse, such as the distinction between homodiegetic and heterodiegetic narratives, the fictional divide between storyworlds and peripheries, and the Radical Fictionalist takes on prefixed discourse. It continues with a summary of the consequences of Radical Fictionalism for a variety of themes from narrative fiction, such as inconsistency, unreliability, importation, nesting, and the different modes of critical discourse. This conclusion ends with a brief allusion to certain independently open semantic and philosophical issues.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Chapter 8 continues with a different aspect of critical discourse, namely its apparent commitment to so-called literary characters. The main aim of this chapter is to highlight the compatibility of Radical Fictionalism with a tolerant attitude towards character-talk, and with an analysis of character-names as fully-fledged proper names. Accordingly, this chapter discusses the sense of ‘character’ relevant from the Radical Fictionalist viewpoint, and it distinguishes it from the understanding of that term dominant in the current debate on fictional realism. The chapter continues with a negotiable hypothesis about character-names as actually referring expressions, and it puts forth a pre-semantic hypothesis about the launch of character-names and about their relationships with fictional names.

The Turn of the Screw

This chapter proposes a Radical Fictionalist analysis of critical discourse. In particular, it contrasts actuality-concerned modes of criticism directed towards educated naturalization with two different, non-propositional enterprises. One is a form of critical retelling aimed at bringing to the foreground certain allegedly important but not obvious features of the storyworld. Accordingly, this chapter discusses the idea of underreading and the critics’ commitment to faithfulness, paying particular attention to examples from the critical literature on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. The other type of critical retelling is a form of biased retelling which abandons faithfulness in favour of canonicity, that is, in favour of retellings consonant with the critical canon.

Cat’s Cradle

This chapter extends the Radical Fictionalist take on peripheries and storyworlds with an introduction to the idea of peripheral importation, paying particular attention to the peripheral importation of actual semantic regularities. The chapter continues with a discussion of the repercussion of Radical Fictionalism for fictional co-reference and translation, with a focus on reported speech and on the translation of fictional proper names. At the end of the chapter, one starred section is devoted to so-called real names in fiction, with a negotiable commitment to the importation of the (presumed) actual metaphysical properties of words. A second starred section is concerned with the idea of fictional languages, as in Burgess’ Nadsat or Vonnegut’s Bokoninish.

Emma

Chapter 3 extends and amends the Radical Fictionalist approach from Chapter 2, taking as its starting point the case of heterodiegetic narrative. In particular, this chapter introduces the distinction between storyworlds and narrative peripheries, and it studies its semantic repercussions. The central sections of the chapter are devoted to the study of fictional names in heterodiegetic fiction. They introduce the ideas of referential permeability and of peripheral launching, and they continue the discussion of the role of fictional tellers. The final section of this chapter applies some aspects of the Radical Fictionalist distinction between storyworlds and peripheries to the issue of narrative time, and it defends an understanding of narrative time as fictional.

The Sign of Four

Chapter 2 lays down the general traits of the Radical Fictionalist analysis of fiction, focusing on the case of homodiegetic narrative. In particular, this chapter stresses the distinction between empty names and fictional names, it explains the role of impartations in fictional discourse, and it motivates the primacy of fictional tellers for a Radical Fictionalist take on fiction. Radical Fictionalism is then compared with some alternative views on the semantics of fictional discourse, with particular attention to Pragmatic Millianism and to theories of semantic ascent. The final sections pause on the Radical Fictionalist approach to speech acts in fiction, and they criticize the idea of a dedicated illocutionary force of fiction-making.

Preliminaries

Chapter 1 puts forth some preliminary considerations about our actual (that is, not fictional) use of language. In particular, it motivates the relevance of singular terms for the Radical Fictionalist approach to fiction, it sketches a picture of the semantics of proper names, and it discusses the ideas of empty names and gappy propositions. This chapter also explains some of the terminology employed in what follows, in particular the distinction between fully-fledged expressions (such as proper names) and expression-types (such as mere name-types). The final section focuses on the contentful effects achieved by the use of language and introduces the idea of impartation, one of the central concepts in the Radical Fictionalist approach to fiction.