The basic form of my question is: Are descriptions of fictional characters or worlds forms of reference?
Yes, I would say so. No matter how indirect the syntax, one cannot describe something unless that thing exists in some sense or another. Even if whatever work of fiction one is drawing the thing from has never mentioned the thing before the description, by describing it the work is actually creating it. For example: "The goat's hooves clattered on the cobblestone street as he ran after the cart." By writing this scene, I've created three fictional things: the goat, the street, and the cart - despite the fact that nowhere in the sentence did I actually assert that any of those things existed.
Yes, I agree with all of this. You know, for a while now I've been thinking that I disagree with the idea that fictional characters are not real. I mean, they certainly are not corporeal. On what basis do we decided that fictional characters are not real, what makes them not real? I think that fictional characters have, essentially, been written into reality. The experience pain and suffering within their fictional universe, have gender, have appearance, and have thoughts. They are not able to react with us, but I am not sure that it makes them unreal.
ReplyDelete