Fictional Truth and Make-Believe

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 6-1-2014

Abstract

The statement "Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth" seems true in Jane Austin's 'Pride and Prejudice' (even though it may not actually appear in the text) while the statement "Mr. Darcy is a detective" seems false. One explanation for this intuition is that when we read or talk about fictional stories, we implicitly employ the fictional operator "It is fictional that" or "It is part of the story that." "It is fictional that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth" expresses a true proposition while "It is fictional that Mr. Darcy is a detective" does not. Fictive statements can be abbreviated as "In F, P." Determining what statements are fictionally true in a story requires providing truth conditions for statements of the form "In F, P." This paper proposes an analysis of truth in fiction and examines the notion of make-believe.

Publication Title

Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel

Volume

42

Issue

2

First Page

349

Last Page

361

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS