FICTIONAL OBJECTS

Gerald VISION [Temple University]

"Proper names of fictional entities name non-existent but possible individuals." If there is such a thing as the common view of the function of fictional proper names, it would include at least that much. Put otherwise, the claim is that fictional names designate things appearing only in some possible world(s) accessible to, but distinct from, the actual world. I shall defend this view against arguments adduced by Saul Kripke 1 and David Kaplan2 to show that fictional names do not designate possible beings, thus do not designate. Their contentions rest on another thesis, which I shall also examine critically, that although some possible beings may satisfy all (or a sufficient number) of the descriptions of a fictional object, no one possible being can be identified as the fictional object in question. We shall only consider fiction that does not essentially imply contradictions. Contradictions are implied essentially ifthe author intends them or if their removal would change the basic character of the fiction. But I shall ignore inconsistencies that are accidental and incidental. Thus, if time travel is logically impossible, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine implies an essential contradiction. On the other hand, in Le Temps Retrouve Proust originally writes about the sound of a fork, but subsequently refers to it as the sound of a knife, while Mme. Cambremer's uncle of an earlier volume of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is there called her father. If these imply contradiction (or even extraordinary physical laws) we may

1. Saul Kripke, "Naming and Necessity," in Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman (eds.), Semantics of Natural Languages (Dordrecht, 1972), pp. 253-354, 763-69. 2. David Kaplan, "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice," in K.J.J. Hintikka, J.M.E. Moravcsik and P. Suppes (eds.), Approaches to Natural Language (Dordrecht, 1973), pp. 490-518. 46 assume that not only are they unintended, but that the passages can be made consistent without impairing the integrity of the work. Much in the subsequent discussion turns on the uses of Kripke's notion of rigid designation. He writes "let's call something a rigid designator if in any possible world it designates the same object, a non rigid or accidental designator if that is not the case."3. If I say 'Aristotle might not have sought refuge in Chalcis', I am speaking of the Aristotle of this world. But the truth conditions for my remark are made more transparent by thinking of this as the claim that in some possible world w', not identical with the actual world w, Aristotle did not seek refuge in Chalcis. Given that Aristotle is not in every possible world, Kripke holds that a rigid designator designates the same thing only in every world in which it desig• nates. Unless it is strongly rigid, it does not designate in some worlds. 4 Imagine the most natural situation in which one might utter 'The discoverer of the first vaccine to prevent cancer will deserve the gratitude of mankind'. The first nine words designate non-rigidly (if at all). In one possible world, they designate, say, Jonas Salk, in another perhaps Genghis Khan. According to Kripke, "proper names (except perhaps, for some quirky and derivative uses, that are not used as names) are always rigid."s Kaplan agrees sans qualification that "a proper name either denotes the same individual with respect to every possible circum• stance or else denotes nothing with respect to any possible circumstance."6 Obviously some definite descriptions are non• rigid designators. But Kripke is careful not to claim that no descriptions designate rigidly. And in fact it seems clear that at

3. Op. cit., pp. 269-70. 4. Ibid., p. 270. Kaplan (op. cit., p. 503) maintains that a rigid designator denoting x still denotes x for worlds in which x does not exist. Though this may be summarized by saying that each rigid designator designates in every possible world, the disagreement with Kripke is more apparent than real. Kaplan could agree with Kripke that for worlds in which x does not exist, the designator designates nothing in that world. Kripke could agree with Kaplan that if inhabitants of that world were to use our rigid designator, it would not fail to designate, though it did not designate anything in their world. 5. Saul Kripke, "Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference," Mid• west Studies in Philosophy, vol. II (1977), p. 272, note 9. 6. Kaplan, op. cit., p. 510.