Fictional objects: different perspectives

Bibliography W.V.O. Quine, «On what there is» from «From a logical point of view», 1980, Cambridge, Massachussetts and London, England, Harvard University Press. F. Orilia, «A theory of fictional entities based on denoting concepts», 2011, Revue Internationale de Philosophie. A. Meinong, «Teoria dell’oggetto», 2018, Macerata, Quodlibet.

Before we start I worked on an italian version of Meinong’s essay «Teoria dell’oggetto», so the words I use here are not originally Meinongian, nothing but an attempt of mine to explain Meinong’s thoughts. I ask in advance for your pardon for all the errors I may (probably) have committed.

Alexius Meinong (1) Phenomenological point of view: the object is independent of the knowledge. We need inexistent objects because we can speak about them, even if only to say «X does not exist» or «Y is impossible». There is a difference between the Consistancy (Meinong says «to be like this») and the Existance («Being»): Consistancy: It’s how an object is characterized, what makes an object different from the other ones. Existance: If an object really is in the world or not in a practical sense.

Alexius Meinong (2) There is a principle, called «principle of indipendence of the to be like this from the being», that establishes that consistancy and existance are not linked, so an object can be knowable without actually existing, they are ideal objects and are called objectives. Even impossible objects have a consistancy, Meinong says «the round square is as much round as square». So the set of existing objects is way smaller than the set of all the knowable objects.

Alexius Meinong (conclusion) Even if Meinong never speaks explicitly about fictional objects, we could estimate, reflecting on his theories on ideal objects, that he accepts fictional ones too. To be true we should recognize that probably there isn’t an object refused by Meinongian ontology.

W.V.O. Quine (McX) In common sense we would say that Pegasus doesn’t exist. Let’s say that a philosopher, we call him McX, accepts Pegasus in his ontology because if it hadn’t been existant we couldn’t have speak about it. If we ask him to describe physically this Pagasus he just can’t, so he says that it’s an idea in people’s mind. We have a problem here: usually the object and the idea of that same object are clearly different: one is visible and the other one not, why there is confusion just for fictional and abstracts objects? Simply because McX can’t accept the fact that Pegaus doesn’t exist.

W.V.O. Quine (Wyman) Let’s now say tha there is another philosopher, Wyman, who thinks that Pegasus is an unactualized possibility: if we claim that there is no Pegasus is because it lacks the attribute of actuality. He doesn’t exist, keeps on Wyman, because it hasn’t a location in time and space, but still it is, it sussists. Then we ask to him what is the difference between the possible bald man tha knocks at the door and the possible fat man that knocks at the door. Again he can’t describe them, all the possible men are empty and uncharacterized, all of them are about the same. Knowing this, where is the utility to have such as huge, bloated world if it’s full of inconsistent things?

W.V.O. Quine (conclusion) Let’s try now with Russell’s descriptions: Pegasus becomes «the winged horse captured by Bellerophon», if the object had been unreducible we would have descripted it as «the object that pegasize». So the statement «Pegasus is a winged horse» means «there is one and only one object that is a winged horse captured by Bellerophon and has the property to be a winged horse». We could see that now things are clearer. In conclusion the problem borns from the common error that the meaningfullness of a word implies the existance of the entity named by that very same word, while it’s quite the contrary; so we could talk about Pegasus without including it in our ontology.

Francesco Orilia Identificationist perspective: we can solve the problem of fictional objects recognizing them as denoting concepts. A century after the Meinong-Russell debate fictional objects make still problems in Russell’s system, how can we preserve the «robust sense of reality»? Denoting concepts are definite properties, they can correspond to a singular specific object or they can be non-referring (as for «Winged horse»). So even proper names are definite description (as for «the only one man killed with 23 stabs on 44 a.C March 15»).

Francesco Orilia (stories 1) Stories are just complicated propositions: so we say that In the divine comedy, Ulysses dies in a shipwreck Means that in a complicated propostion written by Dante is asserted that Ulysses dies in a shipwreck. If a denoting concept it’s a constituent of a story is said that it has a primary occurrence in the story. A denoting concept with primary occurrence has other properties written in the story, these are predicatively linked to it (the fact that Ulysses is very clever).

Francesco Orilia (stories 2) Character set: it entails all the characters of the story. Maximal element: denoting concept of a story that tells us everything about a certain character. Salient element: denoting concept that entails only essential properties of a character. Thin character: salient element of a story in the set Thick character: maximal element in that same character set

Franesco Orilia (possibilities) There are 2 possible intuitions from this division: Character is bounded to a certain story: its maximal element, so its thick character will be different for every story in where that character will be. Character is the same in different stories, it is present in them: the salient element, so its thin character, it’s still the same.

Francesco Orilia (presence) But what does «to be present» means? There are 2 type of presence: Presence1: the presence of the second intuition, the fact that a thin character remains the same. Presence2: connected to the fact tha a story is a source for other stories so characters of this can be connected. Usually a thin character is present1 and present2 both in different stories, but it’s not a rule. We could, in fact, have different no presence1 (so different thin characters) but only presence2.

Francesco Orilia (conclusion) This easily explains why a character con canonically have certain properties, not having them sometimes but being still the same character: it’s a question of presence2 without presence1 In the end fictional objects are just abstract entities available in the ontological inventory.