Impossible worlds are representations of impossible things and impossible happenings. They earn their keep in a semantic or metaphysical theory if they do the right theoretical work for us. As it happens, a worlds-based account provides the best philosophical story about semantic content, knowledge and belief states, cognitive significance and cognitive information, and informative deductive reasoning. A worlds-based story may also provide the best semantics for counterfactuals. But to function well, all these accounts need use of impossible and as well as possible worlds. So what are impossible worlds? Graham Priest claims that any of the usual stories about possible worlds can be told about impossible worlds, too. But far from it. I'll argue that impossible worlds cannot be genuine worlds, of the kind proposed by Lewis, McDaniel or Yagisawa. Nor can they be ersatz worlds on the model proposed by Melia or Sider. Constructing impossible worlds, it turns out, requires novel metaphysical resources.

Against Creationism in Fiction

Impossible Worlds

ionism than Rapaport for, according to the former, guises are concrete rather than abstract entities. See next section.entities. See next section. abstract entities explains their nonexistence in that it takes them to be actually but non-spatiotemporally existing entities. Furthermore, making them into sets of properties—those properties which are assigned to them in the relevant narration—rather than generic objects accounts more effectively both for their being incomplete entities and for the analytical character of the sentences in which these properties are ascribed to them. Moreover, taking those properties to be ascribed to ficta in the internal mode of presentation allows us to explain why one and the same property can be possessed both by an actually spatiotemporally existing object and by an actually non-spatiotemporally existing object such as a fictum. For the actually spatiotemporally existing object possesses externally what the fictum possesses at least internally. I say “at least” because a fictional object may also possess properties externally, sometimes the very same properties it also possesses internally. Finally, once this “internal/external” mode of predication distinction applies to ficta taken as sets of properties, it is not baffling at all. Although external predication is ordinary exemplification, as regards both ficta and actually spatiotemporally existing individuals internal predication is just set-membership: a property is possessed internally by a fictum iff it belongs to the property set that constitutes that fictum.entities explains their nonexistence in that it takes them to be actually but non-spatiotemporally existing entities. Furthermore, making them into sets of properties—those properties which are assigned to them in the relevant narration—rather than generic objects accounts more effectively both for their being incomplete entities and for the analytical character of the sentences in which these properties are ascribed to them. Moreover, taking those properties to be ascribed to ficta in the internal mode of presentation allows us to explain why one and the same property can be possessed both by an actually spatiotemporally existing object and by an actually non-spatiotemporally existing object such as a fictum. For the actually spatiotemporally existing object possesses externally what the fictum possesses at least internally. I say “at least” because a fictional object may also possess properties externally, sometimes the very same properties it also possesses internally. Finally, once this “internal/external” mode of predication distinction applies to ficta taken as sets of properties, it is not baffling at all. Although external predication is ordinary exemplification, as regards both ficta and actually spatiotemporally existing individuals internal predication is just set-membership: a property is possessed internally by a fictum iff it belongs to the property set that constitutes that fictum. These are all positive results, ones that a satisfactory theory of fictional objects must include. Yet they are insufficient. Being a certain set of properties is definitely a necessary condition for the individuation of a fictum since the set is one of its constituents; change the set and you obtain a different fictum.73 No matter which property is internally possessed by a fictum, insofar as that property is a member of the set which constitutes that fictum, if that entity had not possessed that property it would not have been that fictum. It is quite obvious that Yolanda, the daughter of the Black Corsair, could not have failed to be the Corsair’s offspring (by being instead his niece, or someone else’s daughter). But this heroine in one of Emilio Salgari’s adventure novels, very popular in countries where Romance language are spoken, could not even have been such, that the Corsair had not bestowed that name on her (but, say, had named her “Concetta”). Both being generated by the Corsair and being called “Yolanda” are indeed for Salgari’s heroine internally possessed properties, hence members of the set constituting that character. However, being a certain set of properties is not a sufficient condition for a fictum’s individuation. In this respect, two problems arise. First, there may be a property set without any fictum (I call this the “no-ficta” problem). Second, one and the same property set may be 31 The Committal Theories (I) 73 For this thesis, cf. Parsons (1980: 28).

Additional excerpts

How Ficta Follow Fiction

There has recently been considerable interest in accounts of fiction which treat fictional characters as abstract objects. In this paper I argue against this view. More precisely I argue that such accounts are unable to accommodate our intuitions that fictional negative existentials such as “Raskolnikov doesn't exist” are true. I offer a general argument to this effect and then consider, but reject, some of the accounts of fictional negative existentials offered by abstract object theorists. I then note that some of the sort of data invoked by the abstract object theorist in fact cuts against her position. I conclude that we should not regard fictional characters as abstract objects but rather should adopt a make-believe theoretic account of fictional characters along the lines of those developed by Ken Walton and others.

background

Pretense, Existence, and Fictional Objects

While Roman Ingarden is well known for his work in aesthetics and studies in ontology, one of his most important and lasting contributions has been largely overlooked: his approach to a general ontology of social and cultural objects. Ingarden himself discusses cultural objects other than works of art directly in the first section of “The Architectural Work”, where he develops a particularly penetrating view of the ontology of buildings, flags, and churches. This text provides the core insight into how his more lengthy studies of the ontology of works of art in The Literary Work of Art and the rest of The Ontology of the Work of Art, combined with the ontological distinctions of Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt, may be used to understand social and cultural objects. The view that results, I will argue, is based in foreseeing problems with the reductivist and projectivist views that remain popular, and is capable of resolving central problems still thought to plague those who would offer a theory of cultural objects. Social and cultural objects such as money, churches, and flags present a puzzle since they seem, on the one hand, to be entities that clearly – in some sense – depend on minds, and yet, on the other hand, seem to be objective parts of our world, things of which we may acquire knowledge (both in daily life and in the social sciences), and which we cannot merely modify at will. But it is hard to see how any entity could exhibit both of those characteristics – if, on the one hand, we take their objectivity and mind-externality seriously, and consider them to be identifiable with physical objects, we find ourselves saddled with absurd conclusions about the conditions under which such entities would exist and persist, and neglect their symbolic and normative features. If, on the other hand, we treat them as mere creations of the mind, they seem either reduced to phantasms that could not have the recalcitrance and impact on our lives cultural ob-

Ingarden and the Ontology of Cultural Objects

a. But I do not think that diminishes my point here. I am simply claiming that if these things are examples of contingent abstracta, then we can clearly fathom how their creation goes, and so we can at least get some hold of how the creation of fi ctional entities would go. 26. There will be vagueness concerning when a fi ctional name has enough properties associated with it so that it actually can succeed in referring (given an appropriate context) to an individual that exemplifi es those properties, and so vagueness concerning when an individual comes into existence. This does not seem problematic to me (or at least not prob-

Against Creationism in Fiction

Citations

Impossible Worlds

How Ficta Follow Fiction

Pretense, Existence, and Fictional Objects

Ingarden and the Ontology of Cultural Objects

A defense of creationism in fiction

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