Philosophical Perspectives on Fictional Characters

New Literary History 42 (2):337-360 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper takes up a series of basic philosophical questions about the nature and existence of fictional characters. We begin with realist approaches that hinge on the thesis that at least some claims about fictional characters can be right or wrong because they refer to something that exists, such as abstract objects. Irrealist approaches deny such realist postulations and hold instead that fictional characters are a figment of the human imagination. A third family of approaches, based on work by Alexius Meinong, seeks an alternative to the realist/irrealist dilemma. Neo-Meinongian theories rely upon a distinction between being and existence, the key contention being that unlike human beings, fictional characters have only the former. Having surveyed relevant work by contemporary metaphysicians and philosophers of language, this paper discusses issues related to the distinction between characters and other aspects of the content of fictions, including the relation between personality theory and literary conceptions of character

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Fictional characters and literary practices.Amie L. Thomasson - 2003 - British Journal of Aesthetics 43 (2):138-157.
Could Sherlock Holmes Have Existed?Hanoch Ben-Yami - 2010 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 10 (3):175-181.
Speaking of fictional characters.Amie L. Thomasson - 2003 - Dialectica 57 (2):205–223.
The great beetle debate: A study in imagining with names.Stacie Friend - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 153 (2):183-211.
Pretense, existence, and fictional objects.Anthony Everett - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (1):56–80.
Pleonastic entities: Fictional characters and propositions.Massimiliano Vignolo - 2008 - Philosophical Investigations 32 (1):65-78.
In defence of fictional realism.Benjamin Schnieder & Tatjana von Solodkoff - 2009 - Philosophical Quarterly 59 (234):138-149.
How to be a Nominalist and a Fictional Realist.Ross P. Cameron - 2013 - In Christy Mag Uidhir (ed.), Art and Abstract Objects. Oxford University Press. pp. 179.
Much ado about nothing: Critical realism examined.Richard Hanley - 2003 - Philosophical Studies 115 (2):123 - 147.
Harry Potter and the spectre of imprecision.Jim Stone - 2010 - Analysis 70 (4):638-644.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-08-19

Downloads
244 (#75,815)

6 months
10 (#135,615)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Paisley Livingston
Lingnan University
Andrea Sauchelli
Lingnan University

References found in this work

Ontological dependence.Fabrice Correia - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (5):1013-1032.
The ontology of art and knowledge in aesthetics.Amie L. Thomasson - 2005 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (3):221–229.
Possible Worlds Semantics and Fiction.Diane Proudfoot - 2006 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 35:9-40.
On the (so-called) puzzle of imaginative resistance.Kendall Lewis Walton - 2006 - In Shaun Nichols (ed.), The Architecture of the Imagination. Oxford University Press. pp. 137-148.

View all 7 references / Add more references