Organon F
Volume 28, February 2021, Issue 1, Pages 223–252
ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)
Research Article | Special issue on Names and Fictions
Anti-Realism about Fictional Names at Work: A New Theory for Metafictional Sentences
Louis Rouillé
https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28110
In this article, I contribute to ongoing debates about the status of fictional names. The main debate in the philosophy of language focuses on whether fictional names should be thought of as non-referring terms (this is anti-realism) or referring terms (this is realism). This debate corresponds to a debate in metaphysics about the ontological status of fictional characters: the anti-realist claim that fictional characters do not exist while the realist say that they do exist in some sense. Although anti-realism is pre-theoretically intuitive, it has been challenged by a powerful argument in favour of realism based on so-called “metafictional” uses of fictional terms. This argument puts a lot of pressure on the anti-realist, for they have to come up with a theory of metafictional sentences which is in keeping with the anti-realist central tenet. I show that the existing anti-realist account of metafictional statements is wrong-headed. I thus propose a new one. In doing so, I hope to free the anti-realist from the realist pressure. However, I do not offer any argument against realism. Consequently, I merely claim that anti-realism be a live option. My modest proposal will, perhaps, make anti-realism more attractive than it is today among philosophers of language.
Anti-realism; fiction; fictional terms; free logic; metafictional statements; reference.
Author
Louis Rouillé 
Affiliation
Institut Jean Nicod
Address
Institut Jean Nicod UMR 8129 Pavillon Jardin Ecole Normale Supérieure 29, rue d’Ulm F-75230 Paris cedex 05, France
Received
22 February 2020
Accepted
2 October 2020
Published online
28 February 2021
Publishers
Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
APA
Rouillé, L. (2021). Anti-Realism about Fictional Names at Work: A New Theory for Metafictional Sentences. Organon F, 28(1), 223–252. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28110
Chicago
Rouillé, Louis. 2021. "Anti-Realism about Fictional Names at Work: A New Theory for Metafictional Sentences." Organon F 28 (1): 223–252. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28110
Harvard
Rouillé, L. (2021). Anti-Realism about Fictional Names at Work: A New Theory for Metafictional Sentences. Organon F, 28(1), pp. 223–252. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28110
© Louis Rouillé
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