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Disagreeing About Fiction

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Disagreeing About Fiction Préparée à Institut Jean Nicod, UMR 8129 Disagreeing about fiction Soutenue par Composition du jury : Louis ROUILLÉ Stacie Friend Le 02 12 2019 Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Birkbeck, Présidente University of London Françoise Lavocat Professeure de littérature comparée, Uni- Rapportrice o versité Paris 3-Sorbonne nouvelle École doctorale n 540 Emar Maier Lettres, Arts, Sciences Assistant Professor Philosophy & Linguis- Rapporteur tics, University of Groningen humaines et sociales Anne Reboul Directrice de recherche au CNRS, Institut Examinatrice Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304 Paul Égré Spécialité Directeur de recherche au CNRS, Institut Directeur de thèse Jean Nicod, UMR 8129 Philosophie François Récanati Professeur au Collège de France Directeur de thèse Contents Introduction: Is it really a philosophical problem? 13 Fiction as a metaphilosophical problem.................... 13 Parmenides, the Visitor and Plato’s problem................. 15 The problem of non-being (or the non-problem of being)....... 15 Conceptual reconstruction of Plato’s problem............. 19 Conceptual re-reconstruction.......................... 23 Brentano’s problem and program.................... 23 Brentano’s program............................ 27 The metaphysics of relations....................... 28 Consequences for the problem of fiction................. 30 Content and structure of the dissertation................... 32 I Truth in fiction: towards pretence semantics 35 1 The problem 36 1.1 Description of the problem........................ 36 1.2 Non-starters................................ 38 1.3 Explicitism and Intentionalisms..................... 39 1.3.1 Against explicitism........................ 40 1.3.2 Intentionalisms.......................... 43 1.4 Two incompatible solutions on the market............... 45 1.4.1 The modal account........................ 45 1.4.2 The functional account...................... 46 1.4.3 The two solutions are incompatible............... 47 1.5 Plan of action............................... 49 2 On modally minded theorists 51 2.1 Lewis on truth in fiction......................... 51 CONTENTS Back to table of content Page 2 of 347 2.1.1 Lewis’s theory of counterfactuals................ 51 2.1.2 The counterfactual analysis of fictional statements....... 52 2.2 On the kinds of counterarguments to the modal account....... 55 2.2.1 Some terminology......................... 55 2.2.2 Indirect and direct arguments.................. 55 2.3 Aside on the literary minded modal theorists.............. 57 3 Indirect arguments against the modal account 59 3.1 On the two kinds of modal theorists in the literature......... 59 3.2 Dual solutions for dual problems..................... 60 3.2.1 Incompleteness.......................... 60 3.2.2 Inconsistency........................... 61 3.2.3 Dual problems........................... 62 3.3 Doing the impossible with possible worlds............... 63 3.3.1 Supervaluation.......................... 65 3.3.2 Subvaluation........................... 65 3.3.3 Combining the two strategies.................. 66 3.3.4 The revenge of inconsistent fictions............... 66 3.4 Impossible worlds and their limitations................. 70 3.4.1 The unrestricted non-normal world view............ 71 3.4.2 Berto’s thesis........................... 72 3.4.3 A diagonal argument against the unrestricted non-normal world account........................... 73 3.5 Conclusions................................ 75 4 Direct arguments against the modal account 78 4.1 Plan of action............................... 78 4.1.1 The modal intuition....................... 79 4.1.2 Two suppositions of the modal account............. 79 4.1.3 The plot.............................. 80 4.2 Fiction is not just like the other modalities............... 81 4.2.1 Structure of the argument.................... 81 4.2.2 Non-P-modalities......................... 82 4.2.3 On what makes a fictional world a fictional world ....... 84 4.3 Evans against Lewis........................... 88 4.3.1 Evans’s dazzling paragraph................... 88 4.3.2 Explanation of Evans’s argument................ 90 4.3.3 Conclusions drawn from Evans................. 95 CONTENTS Back to table of content Page 3 of 347 5 Walton’s programmatic ideas 98 5.1 Basic definitions.............................. 99 5.1.1 Props............................... 99 5.1.2 Principles of generation...................... 100 5.2 Basic distinctions............................. 101 5.2.1 Imagination and fictionality................... 101 5.2.2 Fictionality and truth...................... 103 5.3 Towards pretence semantics....................... 104 5.3.1 Normativity and fictionality................... 104 5.3.2 Fictionality conditions...................... 106 6 Pretence semantics 107 6.1 Everett’s functionalism.......................... 107 6.2 Simple principles of generation...................... 109 6.2.1 Formalizing a simple pretence.................. 109 6.2.2 On distinguishing between (T1) and (T2)............ 110 6.2.3 Technical points.......................... 114 6.3 Elaborate principles of generation.................... 118 6.3.1 The Reality principles...................... 119 6.3.2 The Mutual Belief principles................... 121 6.3.3 Other elaborate principles?.................... 122 6.4 Conclusion................................. 126 7 From pretence to fiction 128 7.1 In search for the fiction principle.................... 129 7.1.1 Genesis of the report principle.................. 129 7.1.2 The report principle....................... 130 7.1.3 Strong and Weak ....................... 133 7.2 More on the secondary pretence..................... 138 7.2.1 A toy example........................... 138 7.2.2 A linguistic puzzle explained................... 139 7.2.3 Two narratological puzzles explained.............. 140 7.3 The revenge of the reporting-the-unreported problem......... 142 7.3.1 Virginia Woolf and the report principle............. 142 7.3.2 Woolf-like counterexamples................... 144 7.3.3 The appearance principle..................... 145 7.4 Conclusion................................. 147 CONTENTS Back to table of content Page 4 of 347 8 Readers as fictional truth-makers? 149 8.1 Fictions without authors......................... 150 8.2 When readers are authors........................ 151 8.3 A legal prequel for future fan-fictions.................. 152 8.4 Open-ending................................ 155 Appendices 156 A “Truth in fiction” as an unsupervised learning task 156 II The great beetle debate 162 9 Debates over disagreements 163 9.1 A logical space for disagreements.................... 163 9.1.1 Faultless disagreements...................... 163 9.1.2 Fictional disagreements...................... 164 9.1.3 The logical space......................... 166 9.2 The Great Beetle Debate......................... 167 9.2.1 Todorov’s definition of the fantastic............... 167 9.2.2 Application of Todorov’s definition to Kafka.......... 170 9.2.3 Nabokov’s comment on the Metamorphosis ........... 172 10 Imagining past each other 175 10.1 Prototypes and fictional imagination.................. 176 10.1.1 The average reader’s prototypical vermin............ 178 10.1.2 Nabokov’s prototypical vermin.................. 180 10.2 Imaginative resistance.......................... 182 10.2.1 The GBD as a case of descriptive imaginative resistance... 183 10.2.2 Interpreting imaginative resistance............... 185 10.3 Conclusions................................ 187 11 The Great Beetle Debate as a faultless disagreement 189 11.1 Mistaken readers............................. 189 11.1.1 Grading erroneous readers.................... 189 11.1.2 Why are the Smiths so wrong?................. 191 11.2 Saving Private Smith3 .......................... 193 11.2.1 The way of the psychologist................... 194 11.2.2 The way of the sceptic...................... 194 CONTENTS Back to table of content Page 5 of 347 11.2.3 The way of the ignorant..................... 196 11.2.4 The way of the erudite person.................. 196 11.3 Faultless disagreements and literary disagreements........... 198 11.3.1 The GBD is faultless....................... 198 11.3.2 Interpretation and elucidation.................. 199 11.3.3 The GBD as an interesting case of elucidation......... 201 11.3.4 Pluralism about elucidation................... 203 12 The fundamental indeterminacy of fiction 205 12.1 Friend on indeterminacy......................... 206 12.2 Ontologically bizarre characters..................... 208 12.2.1 Definition............................. 208 12.2.2 More examples of ontologically bizarre characters....... 209 12.3 On the indeterminacy of Gregor..................... 212 12.3.1 Naïve epistemology........................ 214 12.3.2 Naïve metaphysics........................ 214 12.4 Finding the indeterminacy on the pragmatic nature of fiction..... 215 12.4.1 Two readings of the reality principle.............. 216 12.4.2 Quine’s notion of indeterminacy................. 218 12.4.3 Gregor is pragmatically indeterminate............. 219 12.5 Conclusion................................. 219 13 Conditions of possibility of great debates 221 13.1 On the non-existence of a great Nose debate.............. 223 13.1.1 The fictional detail........................ 223 13.1.2 Pairing minimally Gregor and Kovalyov’s nose......... 223 13.1.3 A debate about Gogol’s nose?.................. 225 13.1.4 Aside on the explication and thematic interpretation of the Nose225 13.1.5 The difference, and a pseudo-great
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