{"id":7817,"date":"2014-07-24T16:06:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T16:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/24\/do-purely-fictional-items-exist\/"},"modified":"2014-07-24T16:06:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T16:06:15","slug":"do-purely-fictional-items-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/24\/do-purely-fictional-items-exist\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Purely Fictional Items Exist? On Van Inwagen’s Theory of Ficta"},"content":{"rendered":"

A character in a novel is an example of a purely fictional item provided that the character is wholly 'made up' by the novelist.  Paul Morphy, for example, is a character in Francis Parkinson Keyes' historical novel, The Chess Players<\/a> but he is also a real-life 19th century New Orleans chess prodigy.  So Paul Morphy, while figuring in a piece of fiction, is not a purely fictional item like Captain Ahab or Sancho Panza or Frodo.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier<\/a> I said that it is a datum that Frodo, a purely fictional item, does not exist. Saying that it is a datum, I implied that it is not something that can be reasonably questioned, that it is a 'Moorean fact.'   After all, most of us know that Frodo is a purely fictional character, and it is obvious — isn't it? — that what is purely fictional does not exist.  Whatever is purely fictional does not exist<\/em> looks to be an analytic proposition, one that merely unpacks the sense of 'purely fictional.'<\/span><\/p>\n

But then after I uploaded my entry I remembered something that van Inwagen says in his essay Existence, Ontological Commitment, and Fictional Entities<\/a> (in Existence: Essays in Ontology<\/em>, CUP 2014, p. 105):<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The lesson I mean to convey by these examples is that the nonexistence of [Sherlock] Holmes is not an ontological datum; the ontological datum is that we can use the sentence<\/em> 'Sherlock Holmes does not exist' to say something true.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think this sentence would make more sense if van Inwagen had 'linguistic datum' for the second occurrence of 'ontological datum.'  If the nonexistence of Holmes is a datum, then it is an ontological datum; but the fact that we can use the sentence in question to say something true is a linguistic datum.<\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, PvI is saying the opposite of what I was saying earlier.  I was saying something that implies that the nonexistence of Holmes is an ontological datum  in virtue of his being a purely fictional entity whereas PvI is saying in effect that Holmes exists and that his existence is consistent with his being purely fictional.  One man's datum is another man's (false) theory!<\/span><\/p>\n

To sort this out, we need to understand PvI's approach to ficta. <\/span><\/p>\n

Van Inwagen's Theory of Fictional Entities<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We first note that van Inwagen holds to the univocity of 'exists' and 'is.'  The ontological counterpart of this semantic thesis is that there are no modes of being\/existence.  He also has no truck with Meinongian Aussersein<\/em>.  Bear in mind that Aussersein<\/em> is not a mode of being.  And bear in mind that the doctrine of Aussersein<\/em> is not the same as, and goes far beyond, the thesis that there is a weak mode of being had by the fictional Mrs. Gamp and her ilk.  The thesis of Aussersein<\/em> is that<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

M. Some items are such that they have no being whatsoever.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For van Inwagen, (M) is self-contradictory.  He thinks that it entails that something is not identical with itself, which, if the entailment went through, would amount to a reductio ad absurdum<\/em> of (M). (95) Now I have argued<\/a> that van Inwagen is wrong to find (M) self-contradictory.  But let's assume that he is right.  Then it would follow, in conjunction with the univocity thesis,  that everything exists and indeed in the same sense of 'exists.'  And what sense is that?  The sense supplied by the existential quantifier of standard modern predicate logic.  Van Inwagen is thoroughly Quinean about existence.  There is nothing more to existence than what existential quantification expresses.   I call this a dogma of analysis.  Fo an attempt at refutation, see my "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics<\/a>, eds. Novotny and Novak, Routledge, 2014, pp. 45-75.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Now consider the sentence<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1. Tom Sawyer is a character in a novel by Mark Twain.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By van Inwagen's lights, when (1) is translated into the quantifier-variable idiom it can be seen to imply that Tom Sawyer exists.  I won't repeat van Inwagen's tedious rigmarole, but the idea is simple enough: (1) is plainly true; (1) cannot be supplied with an ontologically noncommittal paraphrase; and (1) ontologically commits us to the existence of the fictional character, Tom Sawyer.  This is plausible and let's assume for present purposes that it is right: we accept (1) as true, and this acceptance commits us to the existence of a referent for 'Tom Sawyer.'  Tom Sawyer exists!  The same goes for all pure ficta. They all exist! They exist in the same sense that you and I do.  Indeed, they actually<\/em> exist: they are not mere possibilia. (What I just said is, strictly, pleonastic; but pleonasm is but a peccadillo when precision is at a premium.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But now we have a problem, or at least van Inwagen does.  While we are ontologically committed to the existence of purely fictional characters by our use and acceptance of true sentences such as (1),  we must also somehow accommodate everyone's firm conviction that purely fictional characters do not exist. How? <\/span><\/p>\n

When we say that Sherlock Holmes does not exist, we can be taken to express the proposition that "No one has all the properties the fictional character Sherlock Holmes holds<\/strong> . . . ." (105, emphasis added)  There are properties that fictional characters HAVE and those that they HOLD.  Among the properties that fictional characters HAVE are such logical properties as existence and self-identity, and such literary properties as being a character in a novel, being introduced in chapter 6, being modelled on Sancho Panza, etc. Among the properties fictional characters HOLD are properties like being human, being fat, having high blood pressure, being a resident of Hannibal, Missouri, and being a pipe-smoking detective.<\/span><\/p>\n

What van Inwagen is doing is making a distinction between two modes of property-possession.  A fictional item  can possess a property by having<\/em> it, i.e., exemplifying it, in which case the corresponding sentence expresses an actual predication.  For example, a use of 'Tom Sawyer was created by Mark Twain' is an actual predication. A fictional item can also possess a property by holding<\/em> it.   For example,  'Tom Sawyer was a boy who grew up along the banks of Mississippi River in the 1840s' is not an actual predication but a sentence that expresses the relation of HOLDING that obtains between the fictional entity and the property expressed by 'was a boy who grew up, etc.'<\/span><\/p>\n

With this distinction, van Inwagen can defang the apparent contradiction:  Tom Sawyer exists & Tom Sawyer does not exist.<\/em>  The second limb can be taken to express the proposition that no one exemplifies or HAS the properties HELD by the existing item, Tom Sawyer.<\/span><\/p>\n

To put it in my own way, what van Inwagen is maintaining is that there really is an entity named by 'Tom Sawyer' and that it possesses (my word) properties.  It exemplifies some of these properties, the "high-category properties," but contains (my word) the others but is not qualified (my word) by them.  Thus Mrs Gamp contains the property of being fat, but she does not exemplify this property.  Analogy (mine):  The set {fatness} is not fat:  it holds the property but does not have (exemplify) it.<\/span><\/p>\n

For van Inwagen, creatures of fiction<\/a> exist and obey the laws of logic, including the Law of Excluded Middle.  So they are not incomplete objects.  On a Meinongian approach, Tom Sawyer is an incomplete nonexistent object.  For van Inwagen, he is a complete existent object.  Now although I am not aware of a passage where van Inwagen explicitly states that purely fictional entities are abstract objects, this seems clearly to be entailed by what he does say.  For Tom Sawyer exists, and indeed actually exists — he is not a merely possible being — but he does not interact causally with anything else in the actual world.  He does not exist here below in the land of concreta, but up yonder in Plato land.  So if abstract entities are those that are causally inert,  Tom Sawyer is an abstract object.  That is consistent with what van Inwagen does explicity say, namely, that "creatures of fiction" are "theoretical entities of [literary] criticism." (Ontology, Identity, and Modality<\/em>, p. 53.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Some Questions about\/Objections to  van Inwagen's Theory<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 1. The theory implies that Sherlock Holmes exists, and exists as robustly as I do.  That he exists follows from there being truths about him.  That he exists as robustly as I do  follows from the rejection of Meinongian nonentities and the rejection of modes of being\/existence (and also of degrees of being\/existence). But when I think about Sherlock I seem to myself to be thinking about something that does not exist.  For I know that Sherlock is a purely fictional item, and I know that such items do not exist.  If I am asked to describe the object of my thinking, I must describe it as nonexistent, for that is how it appears.  So what should we say?  Should we say that when I think of Sherlock, unbeknownst to myself, I am thinking of an existing abstract object?  Or should we say that there are two objects, the one I am thinking of, which is nonexistent, and the existent abstract object?<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way there is trouble.  Surely I am the final authority as to what I am thinking of.  It is part of the phenomenology of the situation that when I think about a  detective that I know to be purely fictional I am thinking about an item that is given as nonexistent.  But then the existing abstract object is not the same as the object I am thinking of.  Van Inwagen's abstract surrogate exists; the object I am think of does not exist; ergo, they are not the same object.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, if there are two objects, and it is  van Inwagen's surrogate object that I am really thinking of when I think of Sherlock, then I am always in error when I think of pure ficta.  I appear to myself to be thinking about nonexistent concreta when in reality I am thinking about existent abstracta.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. When I think of Sherlock, I think of a man, and when I think of Mrs Gamp, I think of a woman.  But no abstract object has sex organs.  So either I am not thinking of what I appear to be thinking of, and a systematic error infects my thinking of pure ficta, or I am thinking of what I appear to be thinking of, namely, a man or a woman, in which case I am not thinking of an abstract existent.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. When I think of Mrs Gamp as fat, I think of her as exemplifying the property of being fat, not as holding the property or containing it or encoding (Zalta) it. But then I cannot be thinking about an existent abstract object, for no such object is (predicatively) fat.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Meinongian, when one think about Mrs Gamp, one thinks about a fat woman who does not exist.  According to van Inwagen, when one thinks about Mrs Gamp, one thinks about an existing abstract object that is (predicatively) neither a woman not fat.  Pick your poison!<\/span><\/p>\n

I say neither theory is acceptable.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Possible Objection to My Critique<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

"In the articles you cite, van Inwagen doesn't address our thinking about fictional items.  He is not doing descriptive psychology or phenomenology; his approach is linguistic.  He argues that fictional discourse — discourse about fictional items — commits us ontologically to fictional entities.  He then tries to square this commitment with our acceptance of such sentences as 'Sherlock Holmes does not exist.'  Your objections, however, are phenomenologically based. So it is not clear that your objections hit their target.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response I would say that no adequate theory of fictional discourse or fictional objects can abstract away from the first-person point of view of one who thinks about fictional objects.  Such linguistic reference as we find in a sentence such as (1) above is parasitic upon intentional or thinking reference.  But this is a very large and a very hairy theme of its own.  See The Primacy of the Intentional Over the Linguistic.<\/a>        <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Peter van Inwagen's Trouble with Tropes<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Van Inwagen on 'Exists' as a Polyadic Predicate<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Van Inwagen on the Univocity of 'Exists'<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Thinking About Frodo<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>More on Ficta and Impossibilia<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Identity<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A character in a novel is an example of a purely fictional item provided that the character is wholly 'made up' by the novelist.  Paul Morphy, for example, is a character in Francis Parkinson Keyes' historical novel, The Chess Players but he is also a real-life 19th century New Orleans chess prodigy.  So Paul Morphy, … Continue reading “Do Purely Fictional Items Exist? On Van Inwagen’s Theory of Ficta”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,233,100,408],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-existence","category-fiction-and-fictionalism","category-intentionality","category-language-philosophy-of"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}