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PHIL. 555 – Fiction and Fictionalism Course Description: We Have No PHIL. 555 – Fiction and Fictionalism Course Description: We have no trouble at all deploying our concept of fiction in everyday life. Yet, from a philosophical standpoint, few concepts are as problematic. Is what accounts for the difference between fictional and real representations something in the syntax (something manifest in the structure of the representation) or the semantics (the presence or absence of truth and reference), or is it a matter of pragmatics (the ways in which representations are used/intended to be used)? How should we analyze the truth- value of statements made in or about fictions? Can we learn anything from fictions, and can we make the case for literary cognitivism by drawing on the analogy between fictions and thought-experiments? What kinds of entities are fictional characters, and do they share anything in common with the entities postulated by mathematical and moral realism? This seminar will begin to address all of these questions, and touch upon the significance of the problems posed by fiction for aesthetics, metaphysics, metaethics, and the philosophy of mathematics. Schedule of Readings Week 1 Introductory Class Overview and organizational matters No readings Week 2 The Nature of Fiction I What is fiction, anyway? John Searle – The logical status of fictional discourse Gregory Currie – The Concept of Fiction David Davies – What is a literary work & The nature of fiction (Chs. 2 and 3 of Aesthetics and Literature) Week 3 The Nature of Fiction II What are fictions about? Harry Deutsch – Making Up Stories Stacy Friend – Real People in Unreal Contexts John Gibson – The Fictional and the Real Week 4 Truth in Fiction How to make it work; adding an intensional operator David K. Lewis – Truth in Fiction & Postscripts to Truth in Fiction Gregory Currie – The Structure of Stories (Ch. 2 of The Nature of Fiction) Week 5 Truth in Fiction II What authors can and cannot make true in their stories Tamar Szabo Gendler – The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance Weatherson – Morality, Fiction, and Possibility Richard Hanley – As Good as it Gets: Lewis on Truth in Fiction Week 6 Truth Through Fiction Can we gain knowledge from fictions? Thought experiments? Catherine Z. Elgin – The laboratory of the mind David Davies – Learning through fictional narratives in art and science Elisabeth Camp – Two Varieties of Literary Imagination: Metaphor, Fiction, and Thought-Experiments Week 7 Fictional characters and semantics for fiction I Referring to nonexistents W.V.O. Quine – On What There Is Bertrand Russell – On Denoting Alexius Meinong – Theory of Objects Week 8 Fictional characters and semantics for fiction II More attempts to refer to nonexistents Saul Kripke – Naming and Necessity (extracts) Saul Kripke – Vacuous names and mythical kinds Amie Thomasson – Fiction and Metaphysics Ch. 1 Week 9 Fictionalism and Existentials Introducing fictional characters Kendall Walton – Existence as Metaphor Fred Kroon – Characterising Non-Existents Week 10 The make-believe model of fiction Forget intensional operators, we're pretending! Kendall Walton – Mimesis as Make Believe Ch. 1 Week 11 Mathematical Fictionalism What about mathematical entities? Stephen Yablo – The Myth of the Seven Stephen Yablo – Go Figure: A Path Through Fictionalism Jason Stanley – Hermeneutic Fictionalism Week 12 Moral Fictionalism What about moral entities? John Leslie Mackie – The Subjectivity of Values Richard Joyce – Moral Fictionalism Daniel Nolan, Greg Restall, and Caroline West – Moral Fictionalism vs. the Rest Week 13 Moral and Mathematical Fictionalism Continued Evolutionary accounts of mathematical and moral entities Sharon Street – A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value Justin Clarke-Doane – Morality and Mathematics: The Evolutionary Challenge Essay Due: December 3rd .
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