Greetings all,
This coming Monday, October 29 in the philosophy
common room 1.00-2.30 Amie Thomasson will present a
paper"Fiction, Existence, and Reference".
Abstract:
The greatest difficulty facing realists about
fictional characters is
how to account for the apparent truth of
non-existence claims such as
"Emma Woodhouse doesn't exist". But while claims like
those seem true in many contexts, uttered in other
contexts-such as the discussion of what literary
characters are Austen's creation-claims such as "there
is no [such fictional character as] Mrs. Cole" seem
false. The deeper challenge for every theory is to
account for the truth of the first and the falsehood
of the second.
I will argue that accounting for the
difference in the
apparent truth-values of these and other existence
claims across different
contexts gives us reason to think (against pure
direct reference
theories) that names must come associated with a
minimal conceptual content
that establishes the category of entity the name is
to refer to, if it
refers at all. On this understanding of names, the
truth-value of
singular existence claims depends on the category of
entity prior speakers
intended to refer to, and cannot be evaluated except
with respect to some
presupposed category or other.
The upshot is that the problems of fiction
are symptomatic of
more general problems significant for our
understanding of reference
and existence claims. Conversely, the understanding
of reference and
existence claims that results makes realist views of
fiction more
defensible by showing how to overcome the central
problem they are said to face.
See you there....
Dr. Kristie Miller
Australian Research Council Post-doctoral Fellow
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and
The Centre for Time
The University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia
Room 411, A18
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ph: (work) 02 93569663
Ph: (mobile) 0432 275 286
http://homepage.mac.com/centre.for.time/KristieMiller/Kristie/Home%20Page.html
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